Daniele Durante Wins Prestigious Mitchell Prize

Daniele Durante of Bocconi’s Department of Decision Sciences has been awarded the prestigious Mitchell Prize by the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA). Professor Durante's award-winning paper, titled "Extended stochastic block models with application to criminal networks”, introduces innovative methodologies that enhance our understanding of intricate criminal organizations. His work leverages advanced Bayesian statistical techniques to uncover patterns and relationships within criminal networks, offering unprecedented insights into their structure and operation. His innovative approaches could provide law enforcement and policymakers with powerful tools to combat organized crime more effectively.

Durante's research addresses the growing complexity of criminal networks in the digital age. By applying Bayesian models, he has developed methods to analyze vast amounts of data, revealing hidden connections and key players within these networks. 

Daniele Durante, who is also the winner of a grant by the European Research Council (ERC) has stated that “It is a great honor to receive such a prestigious award. More importantly, it is extremely inspiring for me to see how Statistics and Data Science can open yet-unexplored avenues for answering fundamental questions with remarkable societal impact. I look forward to advancing along these lines of research as part of my ERC project NEMESIS.”

The Mitchell Prize is awarded every year by ISBA in recognition of an outstanding paper that describes how a Bayesian analysis has solved an important applied problem.