Announcing the Carl N. Morris Visiting Day Presentation Prize

The Department of Statistics is thrilled to announce the new Carl N. Morris Visiting Day Presentation Prize, established in memory of Professor Emeritus Carl N. Morris (1939–2023), a beloved member of the department for more than two decades. Professor Morris was a pioneering statistician whose influential work on exponential families, empirical Bayes methods, hierarchical modeling, and applications in areas such as sports statistics and health policy helped shape modern statistical science. 

Beyond his scholarly contributions, Professor Morris was deeply committed to teaching and mentorship. Known for his generosity, intellectual curiosity, and encouragement of younger scholars, he played a central role in fostering a  supportive and vibrant academic community within the department.

This annual prize recognizes outstanding PhD student research and celebrates the commitment to mentorship that defined Professor Morris’s career. Award recipients receive prize money and present their research to prospective students during Admitted Students Visiting Day, showcasing the breadth and excellence of research within Harvard Statistics.

2026 Prize Recipients

In a previous newsletter, we highlighted this year’s recipients of the prize (formerly called the Visiting Day Presentation Prize). The awardees, Anvit Garg (3rd year PhD student), Johann Gaebler (4th year PhD student, now an alumnus), and Souhardya Sengupta (4th year PhD student), gave their lightning talks and were presented with their award certificates during Admitted Students Visiting Day on March 3, 2026.

Representing the range of students’ intellectual interests, the lightning talks featured the following theoretical, applied, and methodological topics:

• Anvit Garg (Theory Speaker): Preventing Model Collapse Under Overparametrization: Optimal Mixing Ratios for Interpolation Learning and Ridge Regression
• Johann Gaebler (Applied Speaker): The Role of Standardized Tests in Admissions: Predictions vs. Decisions
• Souhardya Sengupta (Methodology Speaker): The L test: Leveraging Sparsity in the Gaussian Linear Model for Improved Inference

The Department of Statistics congratulates this year’s awardees and thanks the faculty and Morris family for their vision and partnership in creating this meaningful tribute to Professor Morris!