Elizabeth A. Thompson is a professor in the Department of Statistics, and an adjunct professor in the departments of Biostatistics and Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. She received her B.A. in mathematics and Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from Cambridge University, and held positions at Stanford University and the University of Cambridge before joining the faculty of the University of Washington in 1985. Her research is in the development of methods for model-based likelihood inference from genetic data, including inference of relationships among individuals and among populations. Dr. Thompson won the Jerome Sacks award for cross-disciplinary research from the National Institute for Statistical Science, the Weldon Prize for contributions to Biometric Science from Oxford University, UK, and a Guggenheim fellowship. She is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the US National Academy of Sciences.