Elena Moltchanova

Elena Moltchanova serves as Professor of Statistics and Head of the Statistical Consulting Unit at the University of Canterbury, where she has established herself as a leading expert in applied Bayesian statistics and spatial modeling. Her academic journey began at the University of Helsinki, Finland, where she completed her MSc in Statistics, followed by a PhD from the University of Jyvaskyla focusing on applications of spatial statistics in epidemiology. Her career includes significant contributions at IIASA's Ecosystems Services and Management Program, where she first joined as a Young Scientists Summer Program participant in 2001, earning the Michailevich Scholarship for her work on image restoration. Since joining the University of Canterbury in 2011, she has published extensively, with over 50 papers spanning epidemiology of chronic diseases, extreme event modeling, and forest ecology. Her research impact is evidenced by over 9,300 citations and an h-index of 40. Her expertise spans multiple statistical software platforms and programming languages, which she applies to diverse fields including climate modeling, rare extreme events analysis, and epidemiological studies. As Head of the Statistical Consulting Unit, she continues to bridge theoretical statistics with practical applications while maintaining active research collaborations across international institutions.