MIT Names Alexander Rakhlin SDSC Director After 75 PhD Defenses

1 articles · Updated · MIT News · Aug 3

Alexander “Sasha” Rakhlin, an MIT professor in IDSS and brain and cognitive sciences, will lead the Statistics and Data Science Center, succeeding Ankur Moitra, who had served as director since 2021.
Rakhlin arrives with deep ties to the center: he has been involved since 2016, joined MIT in 2018, and as founding chair of the interdisciplinary statistics PhD program oversaw more than 75 doctoral defenses.
MIT leaders cited his theoretical work in statistics and machine learning and his mentoring record, while Rakhlin said he wants to strengthen the center’s cross-campus community in statistics, machine learning and AI.
He framed the role around AI’s expansion into medicine, energy and public life, arguing that safety, security, uncertainty and failure analysis are fundamentally statistical questions the SDSC is positioned to tackle.