At the beginning of September, Shi Lei, Honorary Dean and Chief Professor of the School of Statistics and Mathematics at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, delivered an online academic report to the faculty of the School of Mathematics, Physics, and Statistics at Shanghai Second Polytechnic University, more than 2,000 kilometers away.
In his talk titled “How to Conduct Interdisciplinary Research in Statistics”, Professor Shi introduced his latest research results in the intersection of statistics and ecology, data-driven behavioral decision-making, experiments, and methodologies. He shared his research experiences, providing new ideas and methods for the listening educators in their own scientific research.
Professor Shi is the first full-time Chief Professor recruited by Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, taking on the responsibility of building and developing the School of Statistics and Mathematics. He has actively organized and planned the development of disciplines and programs, striving to create a high-level school. Through years of effort, the discipline of statistics received a B rating in the fourth round of national discipline evaluations, significantly enhancing its influence nationwide. He has transformed what was once a relatively weak discipline into one of the strongest at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics.
Advocating strongly for a talent strategy, Professor Shi has attracted several academic pioneers to join his team, recruited 20 PhDs, and is currently mentoring four doctoral students. In 2021, the statistics team led by him was awarded the Yunnan Provincial Statistics Science and Technology Innovation Team.
“Teaching is a noble profession; it is an activity that shapes and achieves people. Teachers must faithfully fulfill their sacred duties, and only by dedicating their love to the education career of the Party can they do a good job in teaching and nurturing students,” says Professor Shi. As an educator, he emphasizes student growth and success. He encourages students to closely align societal needs with their own aspirations, cultivating themselves to have a solid professional foundation, good moral character, love for the country, responsibility towards society, and independent thinking.
In his scientific research, Professor Shi is innovative and diligent, focusing on areas such as statistics, applied statistics, quantitative economics, evolutionary game theory, and interdisciplinary statistical science. He has achieved a series of influential original results. In the field of local influence analysis, he was the first to propose the new concept of the generalized influence function, systematically solving the problem of local influence analysis for non-likelihood models. In ecological statistics, he applied statistical methods to study the characteristics of co-evolutionary theory among species. In the study of human cooperative behavior, he established a “Behavioral and Experimental Economics Laboratory” and conducted numerous cutting-edge international experiments. Among them, an academic paper published in Science Advances revealed that real-name systems can promote the evolution of cooperative behavior. The findings not only help mitigate issues like cyberbullying and the spread of fake news on social networks but also contribute to resolving conflicts over environmental resources.
“One must aim high but also be grounded, persistent, and unwavering.” After more than 30 years in the frontline of teaching and research, Professor Shi continues to move forward resolutely on the long journey of scientific exploration.
(This article was reprinted from the September 27, 2023, issue of Yunnan Daily, page 7.)
