Dr. Bani Mallick, head of the Texas A&M University Department of Statistics, was presented with the 2026 Don Owen Award by the San Antonio Chapter of the American Statistical Association.
The award recognizes members of the statistical community for their contributions and embodiment of the threefold characteristics of Dr. Donald B. Owen, formerly a distinguished professor of statistics at Southern Methodist University before his passing in 1991. Nominees for the Don Owen Award are evaluated for their excellence in research, statistical consultation and service to the statistical community.
Mallick is a University Distinguished Professor, Regents Professor, the Susan M. Arseven ’75 Chair in Data Science and Computational Statistics, and the director of the Center for Statistical Bioinformatics at Texas A&M.
Mallick was nominated for the award by Dr. Raymond Carroll, a University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Statistics and 1994 recipient of the Don Owen Award.
“It is an honor to be recognized among the elite group of statisticians who have received the Don Owen Award,” Mallick said. “I want to thank Raymond Carroll for nominating me, all of my colleagues here at Texas A&M and especially my students.”
Life Spent Learning
Mallick began his career at Texas A&M University as an assistant professor in the department of statistics in 1998. He took over as the department head this year.
He received his bachelor of science in statistics from Presidency University, his master of science in statistics from Calcutta University and his Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Connecticut.
Mallick’s research moves at the confluence of theory and applications, weaving together theoretical insight, methodological innovation and computational ingenuity in Bayesian statistical modeling and inference, in service of illuminating complex scientific questions. “He is considered one of the pioneer researchers in the field of Bayesian regression and classification,” Carroll wrote in his nomination letter.
His research has served as a basis for Bayesian semiparametric modeling, making it a key tool for data scientists and machine learners.
Mallick serves as the editor in chief of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Journal on Uncertainty Quantification and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an honor held by fewer than .1% of statisticians.
After eight years at Texas A&M, Mallick was awarded the Distinguished Achievement Award for research, a prestigious honor presented to a select group of five faculty members annually by The Association of Former Students. In 2019, Mallick received the Distinguished Achievement Award for graduate mentoring.
“I have more than 40 Ph.D. students and more than 15 post doctorate fellows,” Mallick said. “Each one of them contributed to this award.”
Despite his many achievements, Mallick says the hallmark of his career has been continuously learning and sharing knowledge with his students.
“Life is a learning experience, and research is part of that process,” Mallick said. “Bayesian learning is about adapting as new information becomes available. I tell my students that they should be willing to grow and change, too.”