Undergraduate awardWinner: Bihan Zhuang (pictured here) for her research on Entity resolution with an application to the El Salvador conflict Honorable mention: Srini Sunil (pictured here) for his research on Bayesian forecasting and decision theory. Master’s awardWinner: J.C. Lazzaro (pictured here) for his research on Forecasting the term structure of interest rates: A Bayesian dynamic graphical modeling approach… read more about 2019 BEST Award Winners »
Each year the Department of Statistical Science honors three outstanding teaching assistants for their strong contributions to the educational mission of the department. Teaching assistants are a vital part of our educational program, helping students in many ways ranging from teaching their own weekly lab sessions to providing individualized tutoring in office hours, and in many cases even preparing their own instructional materials and covering lectures when instructors are called away to present at conferences or in… read more about 2019 TA Award Winners »
Mike West is the distinguished speaker at the annual Spring Lecture Series in the Mathematical Sciences at the University of Arkansas, April 18-20th 2019. The NSF-supported Spring Lecture Series in the Mathematical Sciences has been running annually since 1977. This is the first time that the focus has been on topics in statistics. More details of the broader conference as well as Mike’s lectures are available from the conference web site. read more about Mike West is distinguished speaker in Mathematical Sciences Spring Lecture Series »
Over the past year I have had the privilege to work on an interdisciplinary Bass-Connections team working to quantify gerrymandering. Our aim is to turn gerrymandering from a subjective discussion about how squiggly a district looks, into a rigorous mathematically formulated problem. At a high level, we try to define what a ‘normal’ , non-partisan map would look like. This gives a baseline to compare an enacted plan to. We do this by constructing tens of thousands of maps of North Carolina. These maps follow all of… read more about Statistical Science undergraduate Jacob Shulman at the Supreme Court! »
Professor David Dunson will deliver one of the Medallion lectures at the 2019 Joint Statistical Meetings. The Medallion lectures are sponsored by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). They are one of the IMS's highest honors. For a summary of the award and the topic of Professor Dunson's lecture, see the latest issue of the IMS bulletin. read more about David Dunson to deliver 2019 IMS Medallion lecture »
The Department of Statistical Science at Duke University is inviting applications for a Postdoctoral Associate in statistical science with Professor Rebecca Steorts (https://resteorts.github.io/. The Associate will work on methodological research related to one or more of the following topics, depending on the candidate's interests: (1) entity resolution (record linkage and de-duplication), including building new methodology for entity resolution and evaluating such method on both simulated and real data, (2) exploring… read more about The Department of Statistical Science at Duke University is inviting applications for a Postdoctoral Associate »
If you're an undergraduate at Duke and a female and doing research at Duke, I would like to encourage you to apply to give a spotlight presentation at Duke Undergraduate Machine Learning Day. http://dukeml.org/ml-day.html MS and PhD students can also apply, but first priority will be given to undergraduate students. If you're interested in giving a poster presentation on your work, I'd also like to encourage you to submit a poster based upon your research at this event. There will be prizes to all the top… read more about Machine Learning Day - Saturday, March 23, 2019 News »
Statistical Science Major James Chenyang Wang is a data storyteller at Duke and an incoming product analyst at Thumbtack. He loves slide tacklings in soccer. Read his article on Data Science on STATtr@k. read more about So, You’ve Decided to Study Data Science … Now What? »
Justice by the Numbers: Meet the Statistician trying to fix Bias in Criminal Justice Algorithms When the underlying data they rely on is incomplete—and it often is—the growing use of machine learning tools in America's criminal justice system can have devastating effects read more about Alumna Kristian Lum in the News »
Abbas Zaidi was awarded Best Student Paper award titled Gaussian Process Mixtures for Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects The Business and Economic Statistics Section (B&E) of the American Statistical Association (ASA) offers this award for student members in doctoral programs in business,… read more about Abbas Zaidi receives JSM 2019 Best Student Paper Award »
Please save the date for DataFest 2019, which will be held over the April 5-7 weekend at Penn Pavillion. More information to follow in the next month. We'll post updates at https://www2.stat.duke.edu/datafest/ read more about DataFest 2019 has been scheduled! »
Cracking the Code on Credit Cards at Datathon 2018 read more about Datathon 2018 Feature Story »
Mike West, the Arts & Sciences Professor of Statistics & Decision Sciences in the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University, is the recipient of the 2018 Akaike Memorial Lecture Award. Professor West, was selected to receive the award and present the Akaike Memorial Lecture at the Japanese Joint Statistical Meetings in Tokyo this September. The Award recognized Mike as “one of the pioneers who have led the field of the Bayesian statistics” and who has “significantly influenced the development of the… read more about Mike West Receives Akaike Award »
DURHAM, N.C. -- Since it began in 2011, the Syrian Civil War has left hundreds of thousands of people dead. But as the conflict continues, many monitoring groups say they are starting to lose count of the bodies. Realities on the ground make it increasingly hard to pinpoint precise numbers -- so much so that in 2014 the United Nations announced it would stop updating its death toll due to accuracy concerns. But some researchers are determined to do the best they can to keep Syria’s death count -- which may… read more about Making Sense of Syria's Murky Death Toll »
The University of Florida recognized alumnus Beka Steorts for her statistical work on humanitarian efforts, specifically regarding the ongoing conflict in Syria. https://publications.clas.ufl.edu/ytori-magazine/ytori-fall-2017/beka-steorts/ Beka was also featured in Duke Today about her 5 years using machine learning to assess the death toll in the Syrian Civil War. https://today.duke.edu/2018/09/making-sense-syrias-murky-death-toll read more about Beka Steorts Uses Stats for Humanitarian Purposes »
Alumnus Anirban Bhattacharya, Associate Professor at Texas A&M University, won the Noether Young Scholar Award at this the recent JSM conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada on his paper titled Bayesian Alpha-Posteriors and Alpha-Variational Bayes. read more about Alumnus Anirban Bhattacharya with Noether Young Scholar Award »
The Department of Statistical Science at Duke University invites applications for open rank faculty position as Professor of the Practice to begin in Fall 2019. This position is a regular rank faculty with a term renewable appointment. Preference will be given to candidates demonstrating outstanding teaching and strong interests in data science education and developing and growing our undergraduate major in Statistical Science and interdepartmental major in Data Science. The Department is an internationally recognized… read more about Open Rank Professor of the Practice »
Associate Professor Surya Tokdar has been elected the Program Chair-Elect 2019 for the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science of the American Statistical Association! He will serve as the Program Chair for SBSS in 2020. Congratulations Surya! read more about Surya Tokdar Elected Program-Chair for ASA Section on Bayesian Statistical Science »
David Banks, and coauthors Jesus Rios, and David Rios Insua were awarded the DeGroot Prize for their book, Adversarial Risk Analysis published by CRC Press. The Prize is named for Morris H. (“Morrie”) DeGroot, and recognizes the impact and importance of his work in Statistics and Decision Theory, and his marked influence on the evolution of the discipline over several decades through his personal scholarship, educational and professional leadership. The prize particularly recognizes… read more about David Banks Awarded DeGroot Prize from the International Society for Bayesian Analysis »
Lorin Crawford (Duke PhD 2018) received the 2017 Savage Award in Applied Methodology at the 2018 World Meeting of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis for his outstanding dissertation Bayesian Kernel Models for Statistical Genetics and Cancer Genomics. The Savage Award, named in honor of Leonard J. “Jimmie” Savage, is bestowed each year to two outstanding doctoral dissertations in Bayesian econometrics and statistics, one each in: Theory and… read more about Lorin Crawford Receives Savage Award for Outstanding Dissertation »
Jim Berger was awarded the Zellner Medal from the International Society of Bayesian Analysis at the 2018 World Meeting in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Zellner Medal honors Arnold Zellner, one of the founders of ISBA and ISBA’s first president. The purpose of the Zellner Medal is to recognize ISBA members who have rendered exceptional and distinguished service to ISBA over an extended period of time, and whose contributions have had an impact on the society beyond the time of his or her incumbency. The citation for the… read more about Jim Berger Awarded Zellner Medal from the International Society for Bayesian Analysis »
Jerry Reiter will be the next editor of Statistics and Public Policy, an open access journal of the American Statistical Association. The journal publishes papers that apply statistical methods to answer problems in public policy or relevant political science. Jerry is professor and associate chair of Statistical Science, and Deputy Director of the Information Initiative at Duke. read more about Jerry Reiter named editor of Statistics and Public Policy »
Sayan Mukherjee, Professor. Duke University, has been named Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). An induction ceremony will take place on July 2, 2018, at the IMS Annual Meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania. Dr. Mukherjee received the award for significant contributions to mathematical statistics, including kernel methodology, distributions on manifolds, and inference for dynamical systems, and for extensive work in computational biology and genomics. Each Fellow nominee is assessed by a committee of his… read more about Sayan Mukherjee Named IMS Fellow »
Peter Hoff, Professor of Statistical Science, Duke University, has been named Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). An induction ceremony will take place on July 2, 2018, at the IMS Annual Meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania. Dr. Hoff received the award for sustained and important contributions to sparse, interval and spectral estimation, for applied work in the area of networks and for service to the IMS through editorial responsibilities. Each Fellow nominee is assessed by a committee of… read more about Peter Hoff Named IMS Fellow »
The 2017-18 BEST Award was announced during the Annual Graduation Reception of the Department of Statistical Science at the Rickhouse in Durham on Sunday, May 13th, 2018. BEST Award Winners were: Jan Tomoya Greve & Jaeyeon Lee in recognition of their research on Bayesian Bivariate Markov-Switching Multifractal Model: Examining the inter-frequency dependence between crude oil spot and futures volatility. BEST Award honorable mention: … read more about Jan Tomoya Greve & Jaeyeon Lee receive 2017-18 BEST Award, Dawei Geng & Yunran Chen receive honorable mention »
Duke University awarded distinguished professorships to 26 members of its faculty May 2 at the annual University Distinguished Professors dinner, including Amy Herring, from Statistical Science, who will become the Sara and Charles Ayres Professor of Statistical Science, effective July 1, 2018. https://today.duke.edu/2018/05/duke-awards-distinguished-professors-26-f... Congratulations Amy! read more about Amy Herring Awarded Distinguished Professor »
Peter Hoff has been selected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. The ASA selects up to one third of one percent of its members as fellows, in recognition of "outstanding contributions to statistical science." read more about Peter Hoff designated an ASA Fellow »
Elizabeth C. Lorenzi received an honorable mention for the ASA Cox Scholarship Award. She is pursuing a PhD in Statistics at Duke University. She has excelled in both academics and research. Most extraordinarily, she has grown a statistical research project on prediction of complications after surgery into a funded start-up business that is installing working software in health care settings. This business helps surgeons make real world treatment decisions to help patients. Elizabeth is continuing to develop statistical… read more about Elizabeth Lorenzi Received Honorable Mention for the ASA Cox Scholarship Award »
Saturday, March 31, 2018 | Gross Hall, Duke University Schedule 9am: Registration and breakfast 10am: Introduction and keynote 11am: Workshops 12pm: Networking lunch 1pm: Workshops 2.30pm: Refreshments 3pm: Research spotlight 4pm: Panel discussions Come to Duke's first-ever Machine Learning Day, for undergraduates, on Saturday, March 31 in Gross Hall… read more about Duke Undergraduate Machine Learning Day »
Sponsor: Alibaba Innovative Research Title: Scalable probabilistic inference for huge multi-domain graphs “There has been abundant interest in recent years in developing improved models and algorithms for analysis of very large graphs or networks. There has been a dual focus on developing models that can accurately characterize real-world network data and on developing algorithms for efficient inference. Modeling strategies range from elaborations on stochastic block models (SBMs), which… read more about David Dunson wins awards »