The 4th Annual Industry Day brought seven great companies (virtually) to Duke. This year’s event, co-sponsored by the Master of Interdisciplinary Data Science program, gave over 80 students the opportunity to connect with representatives from Advance Auto Parts, Deloitte Consulting, Fidelity, IBM, MetLife, SAS, and Wells Fargo. Students were able to participate in small group breakout sessions and hear about the representatives’ background and exciting projects. They learned more about how each company uses Statistics and… read more about MSS/MIDS Virtual Industry Day Connects Students with Industry Partners »
Statistical Science students participated in an engaging workshop and learned interview and negotiation skills, including salary and benefit negotiations, from our amazing career coach, Farnoosh Brock in an engaged workshop. Students also gained other tangible workplace success insights as they begin their careers. Students learned how to maximize the total compensation package for an offered position, and role played the difficult parts of the conversation to develop their comfortability with these conversations. The… read more about Salary Negotiations Workshop »
Statistical Science PhD students Bora Jin and Becky Tang are the winners of the 2022
Student Paper Awards from the Section on Statistics and the Environment of the American Statistical Association. Bora's paper is titled, "Bag of DAGs: Flexible & Scalable Modeling of Spatiotemporal Dependence." Becky's paper is titled, "Species interactions and movement: modeling environmental effects on community dynamics." read more about Bora Jin and Becky Tang receive student paper awards »
Story: PhD student Vittorio Orlandi is a recipient of a 2022 student paper award from the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science of the American Statistical Association. The paper is titled, Density Regression with Bayesian Additive Regression Trees. Vittorio collaborated with Statistical Science PhD alumnus Jared Murray, Duke assistant professor Alex Volfovsky, and Antonio Linero. The work extends a Bayesian method called BART to the setting of density regression.
Vittorio also received an honorable mention… read more about PhD student Vittorio Orlandi wins paper competition »
A team of students led by Statistical Science professors Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel and Maria Tackett will pull together all data associated with DataFest (https://www2.stat.duke.edu/datafest) for the purpose of retrospective archiving and documentation as well as creating a valuable resource that can serve as the one-stop-shop for students interested in participating in DataFest in the future. Goals of this project include curating “metadata” on past DataFests to build an interactive dashboard that shows the growth of the event… read more about Data+ 2022 »
Statistical Science faculty members Drs. Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel and Yue Jiang were recently awarded a Faculty Advancement Seed Grant for their proposal "Building a Community of Practice for Statistics and Data Science Education Researchers," which aims to more fully incorporate the practice of statistical education to our department's and university's research missions and elevate the visibility of this important work. The grant will provide funding to support events (e.g., journal clubs) focusing… read more about Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel and Yue Jiang awarded faculty advancement grant »
We would like to congratulate Aihua Li for winning the Dean’s Research Award. The Dean’s Research Award provides funding for the purchase of materials and supplies to support research relevant to a Master’s student’s degree completion. Aihua’s research focuses on Bayesian decoupling for sparse estimation advised by Dr. Surya Tokdar and Dr. Jason Xu. Congratulations, Aihua! read more about MSS Student Wins Dean’s Research Award »
Dr. Funda Gunes, Director of the Master’s Program, and Dr. Merlise Clyde, Director of Graduate Studies, hosted a virtual admissions information session for both the Master’s and Ph.D. Statistical Science programs. First, Dr. Gunes gave an overview of the Master’s program, highlighting program requirements as well as co-curricular opportunities. Next, Dr. Clyde discussed the opportunities available through the Ph.D. program. Dr. Gunes and Dr. Clyde reviewed the admissions requirements for both programs. Finally, prospective… read more about Joint MSS/Ph.D. Virtual Admissions Session Welcomes Prospective Students »
Statistical Science faculty member Amy Herring, the Charles Sara & Charles Ayres Distinguished Professor, was elected as the incoming president of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA). Additionally, Li Ma, who is an associate professor of statistical science, was elected to the ISBA Board of Directors. Congratulations, Amy and Li! read more about Statistical Science faculty elected to ISBA leadership »
On November 10th, the MSS program had its 2021 Alumni Day organized by the GCC. Seven MSS alumni joined the event as panelists to share their professional insights with current MSS students. The event started with opening remarks from the program director, Dr. Funda Gunes, who warmly welcomed all alumni and students to the event. The students then had the chance to learn from the alumni about their backgrounds and professional experiences through a panel discussion moderated by the GCC members. The panelists all worked in… read more about 2021 MSS Alumni Day »
During this week’s proseminar session, MSS students enjoyed an engaging discussion on Ethical AI and Data Science led by Emily Hadley from RTI. Emily shared great insights and questions data scientists should ask during the planning, implementation, and interpretation stages of their projects in order to maintain a focus on equity and inclusivity. Emily also shared her work and efforts in Responsible AI at RTI, several pertinent articles on the subject, and wonderful resources to increase awareness in the area, including We… read more about MSS Proseminar: Ethical AI & Data Science session »
11/9, 4-6pm, Old Chem Porch
if you're applying for a Ph.D. program in Statistical Science, come have your application reviewed by StatSci faculty and current Ph.D. students.
Rain location: Old Chem 100 Lobby read more about PhD Workshop »
The Department of Statistical Science at Duke University will host a virtual information session for our Master’s and Ph.D. programs on Friday, November 19th from 2-3:30pm ET. This session is open to all who are potentially interested in applying to one of our graduate programs.
The Master's in Statistical Science (MSS) is a 2-year graduate degree program that provides a modern, comprehensive education in statistical theory, methods, and computation. The MSS program offers generalized focus areas (including data science,… read more about Prospective Students: MS and Ph.D Virtual Information Session »
DURHAM, N.C. -- As North Carolina lawmakers debated new district maps for the state legislature and the United States House of Representatives, two Duke experts spoke to journalists about what the newly drawn maps could mean for North Carolina voters and future elections for the next decade:
Watch the briefing on YouTube.
Here are excerpts:
On how these maps compare to the ones previously discarded as unconstitutionalASHER HILDEBRAND, associate professor of the practice, public policy…read more about Experts Discuss Redistricting in North Carolina »
Statistical Science faculty members Dr. Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, Dr. Alexander Fisher, Dr. Alexander Volfovsky, Dr. Simon Mak, and Dr. Yuansi Chen joined the Proseminar course to connect with first-year MSS students moderated by Dr. Funda Gunes.
Many thanks to all five faculty members for sharing their personal/professional history, research interest, potential research topics with MSS students, and best practices (tips/tricks) to successfully set up research collaborations. Students enjoyed this opportunity to connect with… read more about Faculty discuss research with MS students »
Statistical Science postdoc Rungang Han has been selected to receive the 2021 IMS Lawrence D. Brown PhD Student Award. The award will fund Rungang's travel to next year’s IMS Annual Meeting in London, June 27–30, 2022. Rungang will present a paper at the IMS Lawrence D. Brown Ph.D. Student Award invited session. read more about Postdoc Rungang Han receives IMS Award »
Ruda Zhang, Simon Mak and David Dunson have been awarded the Best Paper Award at the INFORMS Section on Quality, Statistics and Reliability for their paper “GPS: Gaussian Process Subspace Regression for Model Reduction”. This award recognizes the best research paper on state-of-the-art methodological developments and applications that cater to the next generation of intelligent systems for manufacturing, service and healthcare. This paper was selected in a refereed session with 27 submissions this year.
read more about Best paper award at INFORMS »
PhD Alum Mengyang Gu is the recipient of the 2022 SIAM Activity Group on Uncertainty Quantification Early Career Prize. This prize is awarded every two years to one individual in their early career for outstanding research contributions in the field of uncertainty quantification in the three calendar years prior to the award year. The SIAM Activity Group on UQ is a the fastest growing activity group in SIAM, currently having over 1000 members. Mengyang is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department… read more about Mengyang Gu (PhD 2016) receives SIAM Career Prize »
Whether preventing explosions on electrical grids, spotting patterns among past crimes, or optimizing resources in the care of critically ill patients, Duke University computer scientist Cynthia Rudin wants artificial intelligence (AI) to show its work. Especially when it’s making decisions that deeply affect people’s lives.
While many scholars in the developing field of machine learning were focused on improving algorithms, Rudin instead wanted to use AI’s power to help society. She chose to pursue opportunities to apply… read more about Duke Computer Scientist Wins $1 Million Artificial Intelligence Prize, A ‘New Nobel’ »
We had another great proseminar session, in which second-year MSS students Emre Yurtbay, Lingyu Zhou, Michael Sarkis, Madeleine Beckner, Jack McCarthy, and Rob Kravec recounted their experiences in a variety of summer internships with Voya Financial, Lubrizol, Facebook, Autodesk, Optiver, and 2nd Order Solutions. The students provided great insights and advice, not only describing their internship experiences, but also offering advice about the interview processes. Students emphasized the importance of communication skills… read more about Internship Lightning Talks »
Distinguished Professor of Statistics and Decision Sciences Mike West has been announced as the Bruno de Finetti Lecturer for the 2022 World Meeting of the International Society of Bayesian Analysis (ISBA). This biennial ISBA award recognizes “an outstanding scholar who has provided significant contributions to the advancement of Bayesian Statistics.” Established in 2015, the award has previously recognized Persi Diaconis (Stanford), Phil Dawid (Cambridge) and our own Jim Berger.
read more about Statistical Science Professor has been announced as the Bruno de Finetti Lecturer »
First-year MSS students are getting prepared for summer internship applications by taking part in an interactive Writing Effective Resumes Workshop. The workshop was given by Dr. Heidi Giusto and is tailored to the needs of Master’s students in the Statistical Science Department. In this workshop, students learned best practices for resume writing and understanding how applicant tracking systems work. Upon completing the workshop, each student will have two individual consultation sessions with Dr. Guisto to review their… read more about MSS Professional Development Series Begins »
Only one line of code separates a method created by Duke Statistical Science Professor Fan Li from another methodology commonly used in assessing the relative effectiveness of medical treatments. But her approach has proved to be a powerful new tool for doctors trying to navigate complex treatment challenges for patients with COVID-19.
Li began her work with overlap weights – the name of her methodology – years before the pandemic struck. Her initial paper on the topic was published in the Journal of the American… read more about Duke-Developed Statistical Method Helps Physicians Weigh COVID-19 Treatments »
Statistical Science
