Quick Links

» CV
» Publications
» Current Research
» In the News
» Awards

Abraham J. Wyner
Associate Professor of Statistics,  Director, Undergraduate Program in Statistics


Professor Wyner received his Bachelors degrees in Mathematics from Yale University, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude with distinction in his major. He was the recipient of the Stanley Prize for excellence in Mathematics. His PhD in Statistics is from Stanford University, where he won a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship, the Abrams Prize and the Herz Foundation fellowship. After graduating from Stanford, he received the NSF post-graduate fellowship and a visiting Professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Wyner has been a Professor of Statistics at the Wharton School of Business for the last 11 years. He is a tenured Associate Professor and the Chair of the Undergraduate Program in Statistics for the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Wyner is an expert at Probability Models and Statistics. His principle focus at Wharton has been research in Applied Probability, Information Theory and Statistical Learning. He has published more than 30 articles in leading journals in many different fields, including Applied Statistics, Applied Probability, Finance, Information Theory, Computer Science and Bio-Informatics. He has received grants from the NSF, NIH and private industry. Professor Wyner has participated in numerous consulting projects in various businesses. He was one the earliest consultants for TiVo, Inc, where he helped to develop early personalization software. Dr. Wyner created some of the first on-line data summarization tools, while acting as CTO for Surfnotes, Inc. More recently, he has developed statistical analyses for banks and marketing research firms and has served as consultant to several law firms in Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C. In addition, he has served as statistical faculty advisor for the University Pennsylvania Law School. His interest in sports statistics has led to a collaboration with ESPN where Dr. Wyner was the PI on the ESPN funded MLB player evaluation research project. He has worked has also served as a statistical expert for hedge funds and private equity concerns.

Publications
Abraham J. Wyner, Shane Jensen, Blake McShane (2010), Characterization of the bout durations of sleep and wakefulness, Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 193: 321-333
Abraham J. Wyner, Shane Jensen, Ken Shirley (2009), Spatial modeling of fielding ability in baseball, Annals of Applied Statistics, 3: 491-520
David Mease, Abraham J. Wyner (2008), Ten counter examples to the statistical theory of boosting, Journal of Machine Learning Research, 9: 131-156
Fiorenzo Ferrari, Abraham J. Wyner (2003), Estimation of general stationary processes by variable length markov chains, Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, 30(3): 459-480
Abraham J. Wyner, Dean P. Foster (2003), On the lower limits of entropy estimation

top of page

Current Research
Abraham J. Wyner, Blakeley McShane, Statistical Analysis of multiple temperature proxies: Are reconstructions of surface temperatures over the last 1000 years reliable.

top of page

In The News
Penn Professors Findings Contradict Clemens' Analysis of Career Stats, ESPN, 02/10/2008, Abraham J. Wyner

top of page

Honors And Awards
Mathematical Sciences Post-Doctoral Fellow, NSF, 1995-1998

top of page

 
 
Wyner J. Abraham
Abraham J. Wyner
448 Jon M. Huntsman Hall
3730 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: (215) 898-2439
ajw@wharton.upenn.edu

Research Interests:
Probabilistic modeling; information theory; entropy; data compression; Boosting; Baseball; Temperature Reconstructions