Sayan was a brilliant scientist and a dear friend. I will deeply miss our conversations, his vast knowledge—spanning everything from statistics to music to politics—and his…
Professor Sayan Mukherjee, 54, passed away in Leipzig, Germany, on March 31, 2025. Sayan loved music, food and cooking (especially for others), funny t-shirts (sometimes on the border of good taste), and working with his colleagues and students. He took great joy in translating between ideas from different fields and in sharing this love with his students. And he especially loved being a father to his son, Kiran.
Born March 8, 1971, in Kolkata, India, Sayan spent the very early years of his life in France, Canada, and then in various parts of the US from grade school onwards. After completing his undergraduate degree in electrical engineering at Princeton University in 1992, he went on to do research at the Los Alamos National Labs and Columbia University resulting in a MS in Applied Physics and Mathematics in 1996. Sayan received his PhD from MIT Brain and Cognitive Sciences in 2001 and worked at MIT and the Broad Institute on a Sloan Postdoctoral Fellowship. From 2004 to 2022, he was at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. In 2008, he received a Young Researcher Award from the International Indian Statistical Association, and in 2018, he became a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. In 2022, he joined Leipzig University as a Humboldt Professor and the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences as a Fellow. Sayan was a member of various international professional societies.
A celebration of life will be held for family, friends, colleagues, and students at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina on Saturday, April 19, 2025 at 10:30 am in Gross Hall 107. A reception will follow in Gross Hall 330.
For those unable to attend in person, the service will be live streamed. A link to the stream will be shared here prior to the event.
Memories
Please fill out this form to add memories below.
No matching items
