UOW's Distinguished Professor Noel Cressie awarded prestigious US honour
University of Wollongong (UOW) Distinguished Professor Noel Cressie has been awarded the 2026 Jerome Sacks Award by the US National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS), recognising his sustained contribution to cross-disciplinary research in the statistical sciences.
The annual award honours the service of Jerry Sacks, founding director of NISS, and is given to researchers whose work applies statistical methods to advance understanding across multiple fields.
As Director of the Centre for Environmental Informatics, Professor Cressie's research in spatial statistics spans a wide range of environmental and scientific problems, harnessing the power of mathematics to create real-world impact. Research topics include global carbon dioxide flux, regional climate, sea surface temperature, air pollution, disease mapping, ocean biogeochemical cycles, soil carbon dynamics, glacier movement and river pollution.
"It is a real honour to be recognised on a global stage," Professor Cressie said. "My science is the science of uncertainty or imperfection, where I quantify uncertainties statistically."
Professor Cressie has spent years pioneering and developing the field of spatial statistics. That expertise has underpinned collaborations around the world, including Antarctic research as part of the ARC Special Research Initiative Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SAEF), soil carbon studies with CSIRO, and a series of space projects with NASA. He has been a member of the Science Team for NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2) satellite since 2010, contributing to the measurement and mapping of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) across the globe.
With colleagues at UOW, CSIRO and the University of Bristol, Professor Cressie helped develop WOMBAT (WOllongong Methodology for Bayesian Assimilation of Trace-gases), a multi award-winning statistical framework for estimating greenhouse gas processes from satellite data. In 2025, he was named the recipient of the prestigious Hannan Medal from the Australian Academy of Sciences, in recognition of his work using mathematics to protect the environment.
"Our work has been critical in understanding flux, namely the sources and sinks of CO2 on a global scale. WOMBAT maps the fluxes at high resolutions with a companion map showing the uncertainty of the estimated fluxes," Professor Cressie said.
"I've spent my career trying to bring clarity to uncertainty, because I believe we have a responsibility, personally and collectively, to understand what's happening to our planet. Recognition like this is encouraging, but the work that matters most is what mitigation decisions come next."
More recently, Professor Cressie served on a joint NASA and European Space Agency (ESA) Tiger Team, developing Bayesian statistical methods to assess biohazard risks for samples due to be returned from Mars around 2040. The team's report received NASA's 2025 Group Achievement Award.
