Prof Sugnet Lubbe

Sugnet Lubbe completed all her studies: BCom (Mathematics and Mathematical statistics), HonsBCom (Mathematical statistics), MCom (Mathematical statistics) and PhD (Mathematical statistics) between 1992 and 2001 at Stellenbosch University. After spending 13 years in industry, she moved to academia in 2009 as Associate Professor at the University of Cape Town. Since 2017 she is Professor in Statistics at Stellenbosch University.

Prof Lubbe’s research is centred around multivariate data analysis and she specialises in visualisation of high dimensional data with biplots. Together with Prof Niël le Roux from Stellenbosch University and Prof John Gower from The Open University, UK, the book Understanding Biplots was published in 2011. As a very active research group these authors applied biplots to enhance the exploration and understanding of data in applied fields ranging from the mining industry, finance, archaeology, sport science, sensory evaluation and even antique furniture. New developments relating to biplot methodology were continuously produced and after Prof Gower’s passing in 2019, Prof le Roux and Prof Lubbe are still actively working in the field. Since 2014 Prof Lubbe started focussing some efforts specifically in the analysis of microbiome data as collaborator of the Center for Research on the Respiratory Microbiota of African Children. Prof Lubbe finds particular satisfaction in applying the beauty of mathematics to real data problems where better data insights make a real difference, such as improving the lives of TSC patients.

Prof Lubbe is an elected member of the International Statistics Institute and currently serves as executive committee member of both the International Association for Statistical Computing and International Federation of Classification Societies. She is a founding member of the Multivariate Data Analysis Group within the South African Statistical Association and has been serving as chair since its inception in 2014. Prof Lubbe has served as reviewer for a multitude of scientific journals in the field of Statistics and is associate editor for Computational Statistics as well as the Journal of Data Science, Statistics and Visualisation.