Interview With Professor Elizabeth A. Thompson

Summary Elizabeth A. Thompson is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Statistics at the University of Washington. She is internationally renowned for her foundational contributions to modern statistical genetics, having transformed the field by developing rigorous mathematical and statistical frameworks to infer ancestral relationships and genetic structures from complex pedigree data. Her work offers essential statistical tools for mapping complex traits and analysing the genetic history of diverse populations. Elizabeth was born on 22 May 1949, into a mathematical family; both of her parents were Oxford‐educated mathematicians. Elizabeth studied at Cambridge, earning a BA in Mathematics in 1970—with first‐class honours in the Mathematical Tripos—and a diploma in Mathematical Statistics in 1971. She continued her graduate studies at Cambridge and earned a PhD in Statistics in 1974. After spending 1 year as a postdoc at Stanford University supported by a joint fellowship from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the National Research Council of Britain, Elizabeth returned to Cambridge as a Research Fellow at King's College, Cambridge, and a Lecturer in Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics. She joined the Faculty of the Department of Statistics at the University of Washington in 1985. She served as the 2017–2018 President of the International Biometric Society. Elizabeth was awarded a Doctor of Science (ScD), a higher doctorate, by the University of Cambridge in 1988 and was named an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, in 2013. Her distinguished career has been recognized by many of the world's most prestigious scientific societies: She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998, a Member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2008 and a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2023.