Lien-Ju Anne Chao (; born 1950) is a Taiwanese environmental statistician. She works in the Institute of Statistics at

National Tsing Hua University National Tsing Hua University (NTHU) is a public research university in Hsinchu, Taiwan. It was first founded in Beijing. After the Chinese Civil War, president Mei Yiqi and other academics relocated with the retreating Nationalist government to ...

, where she is Tsing Hua Distinguished Chair Professor and a former Taiwan National Chair Professor. Chao has described herself as "60% statistician, 30% mathematician and 10% ecologist". She is known for her work on

mark and recapture Mark and recapture is a method commonly used in ecology to estimate an animal population's size where it is impractical to count every individual. A portion of the population is captured, marked, and released. Later, another portion will be captu ...

methods for estimating the size and

diversity Diversity, diversify, or diverse may refer to: Business *Diversity (business), the inclusion of people of different identities (ethnicity, gender, age) in the workforce *Diversity marketing, marketing communication targeting diverse customers * ...

of populations. The Chao1 and Chao2 estimators of

species richness Species richness is the number of different species represented in an community (ecology), ecological community, landscape or region. Species richness is simply a count of species, and it does not take into account the Abundance (ecology), abunda ...

are named after her.

Education and career

Chao earned a bachelor's degree in mathematics at National Tsing Hua University in 1973. She moved to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

for graduate studies, completing a PhD in statistics at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

in 1977. Her dissertation, supervised by Bernard Harris, was ''The Quadrature Method in Inference Problems Arising From the Generalized Multinomial Distribution''. After working for a year as a visiting assistant professor at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

, she returned to National Tsing Hua University as a faculty member in 1978. She was Taiwan National Chair Professor there from 2005 to 2008, and became Tsing Hua Distinguished Chair Professor in 2006. With Lou Jost, Chao is the author of ''Diversity Analysis'' (Taylor & Francis, 2008; Chapman & Hall, 2017). She is also the author of ''Statistical Estimation of Biodiversity Indices'' (Wiley, 2017) with Chun-Huo Chiu and Jost. Chao was elected as a fellow of the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts ...

in 1997. She is also an elected member of the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. At a meeting of the Jubilee Meeting of the Royal Statistical Society, statisticians met and formed the agreed statues of the International Statistical ...

References

External links

*
Anne Chao's academic website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chao, Anne 20th-century births Year of birth missing (living people) Place of birth missing (living people) Living people Taiwanese statisticians Women statisticians National Tsing Hua University alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni University of Michigan faculty Academic staff of the National Tsing Hua University Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics