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Beka Steorts: Named to MIT’s 35 under 35 Innovators List

Beka Steorts is a new assistant professor at Duke University in the Department of Statistical Science with affiliations in the Social Science Research Institute (SSRI) and the information initiative at Duke (iid). Last week she was named one of the 35 innovators under 35, in the category of humanitarian. She has been working on estimating death counts in the Syrian war with Steve Fienberg, the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), and others since 2013. Her award at MIT can be seen here along with a blog-post by… read more »

Jim Berger, Arts & Sciences Professor of Statistics, received the 2015 Samuel S. Wilks Memorial Award

The Wilks Memorial Award honors the memory and distinguished career of Sam Wilks by recognizing outstanding contributions to statistics that carry on the spirit of his work. The Wilks Award is made possible in part by a donation from Alexander Mood, who was a student of Wilks. The 2015 honoree is James O. Berger of Duke University. Jim Berger has made fundamental contributions to the foundations of statistics and to statistical decision theory. He is one of the world’s leading figures in Bayesian statistics, particularly in… read more »

JSM 2015 Alumni Dinner

JSM 2015 Alumni Dinner REGISTRATION Deadline was July 27th - any meal registered after JULY 28TH WILL BE GIVEN A VEGETARIAN MEA. Date: Monday, August 10th, 2015 6:30pm - Social 7:00pm - Dinner The 2015 JSM Alumni dinner has been confirmed and the menu is set. The event will at Andaluca Restaurant  and will begin with a Cash Bar at 6:30pm with one (1) free free drink ticket from the department, dinner will start at 7:00 pm. The Cash Bar will be open until the end of the evening. The cost of dinner… read more »

Alum Jouchi Nakaijima has new position at the Bank of Japan

StatSci alum Jouchi Nakajima (Ph.D. 2012) has moved to a new position in the Bank of Japan. Jouchi is now Deputy Director in the Global Economic Research Division of the BoJ's International Department. In addition to running and directing research, Jouchi is in charge of forecasting the global economy (up to a 3-year horizon)- i.e. making predictions on which the Bank's macroeconomic forecasts of the Japanese economy are based. read more »

Statistics with R on Coursera

Statistics with R Specialization on Coursera offering 5 courses prepared by Duke Statistical Science faculty. https://www.coursera.org/specializations/statistics The courses are Introduction to Probability and Data Inferential Statistics Linear Regression and Modeling Bayesian Statistics Statistics Capstone Project You can take the courses individually or sign up for the whole specialization, but to do the capstone you need to have completed the 4 courses in the specialization. The landing page for the… read more »

Two StatSci Teams are Winners of the LinkedIn Economic Graph Challenge

Two of the 11 teams that won the innovative and highly competitive LinkedIn Economic Graph Challenge are led by Duke Statistics faculty  David Banks, Katherine Heller, and David Dunson. In addition, incoming Assistant Professor Alex Volvofsky is part of the winning team from Havard's Department of Statistics.  Launched in October 2014, the challenge asked investigators, academicians and “data-driven thinkers” to submit their ideas for creating greater economic opportunity for the approximately… read more »

Joe Futoma Wins 2015 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Joe Futoma, who has been awarded a 2015 National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship! The NDSEG Fellowship is sponsored and funded by the Department of Defense. NDSEG selections are made by the Air Force Research Laboratory/Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Office of Naval Research, and the Army Research Office, and are offered to individuals who have demonstrated the ability and special aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering. The… read more »

Statistical Science 3rd Year PhD Student Kaoru Irie Wins the 2014-15 BEST Award

The 2014-15 BEST Award winner was announced during the Annual Graduation Reception of the Department of Statistical Science, 21C Museum Hotel, downtown Durham, on Sunday, May 10th, 2015. BEST Award Winner 2014-15: Statistical Science 3rd Year PhD Student Kaoru Irie, in recognition of his research on Portfolio Optimization with Asymmetric Utilities: A Novel Bayesian Approach. (Pictured: Kaoru Irie, 2014-15 BEST Award winner and Professor Mike West, DGS, making the presentation) Honorable Mention: Statistical Science 2nd Year… read more »

Alumna Lynn Lin moves to PSU

Duke StatSci alumna Lynn Lin (Ph.D. 2012, and currently a post-doc involved in research in Bayesian methodology and computational biology in Seattle at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center), will start a new position as Assistant Professor of Statistics at Penn State University later this summer. Congrats to Lynn- and, let's look forward to an increasingly Bayesian PSU! read more »

Lorin Crawford NSF Graduate Research Program Fellowship Recipient

Congratulations to Ph.D. student Lorin Crawford, who was recently selected to receive a 2015 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Program Fellowship! His award will provide him a stipend and the university will receive funding to cover his tuition and fees for a period of three years. As an NSF Fellow, he will be able to take advantage of many professional development opportunities. He plans on participating in NSF's GRIP (Graduate Research Internship Program) where fellows are partnered with federal agencies for… read more »

New Assistant Professor in StatSci - Beka Steorts

The Department of Statistical Science will have a new faculty member in 2015, Rebecca or Beka Steorts! Steorts received her Ph.D. in 2012 from the Department of Statistics at the University of Florida under the supervision of Malay Ghosh, and was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon prior to joining StatSci.   She is a recipient of the Graduate Alumni Fellowship Award (2007-2010) from the University of Florida and the U.S. Census Bureau Dissertation Fellowship Award (2010-2011). In 2011, she was… read more »

Mice Sing Like Songbirds to Woo Mates: New statistical tool helps analyze songs of mice in hot pursuit

From Duke Today article April 1, 2015 A Male mouse sings loud and complex song when eligible bachelorette is nearby but not sighted. When he's in her presence, he sings more quietly and simply. Credit - Jonathan Chabout, Duke University   Male mice sing surprisingly complex songs to seduce females, sort of like songbirds, according to a new Duke study appearing April 1 in the Frontiers of Behavioral Neuroscience.   For more than 50 years, it has been known that mice sing. That is, they emit what’s called ‘… read more »

ASA DataFest 2015 at Duke

Are you data driven?   Register today for ASA DataFestTM 2015 at Duke at Duke University, The Edge, March 20-22 bitly.com/datafest15 Registration deadline: March 6   Want to get creative with data? Mingle with data analysis professionals from industry and academia? Compete for prizes and glory? At DataFest you'll get a chance to work on a large, complex, and surprise data analysis challenge. And, as usual, we'll be providing free food throughout the weekend!   Read about past… read more »

The BEST Award for Student Research 2014/15

The Department of Statistical Science and BEST Award Committee invite submissions for the 2014/15 BEST Award,  the annual award for a student or students based on research projects in Bayesian statistical modeling, decision analysis, time series, forecasting and other topics related to financial, economic and business applications. For full details of the 2014/15 competition, the BEST Award and Foundation, as well as past awards, please visit the BEST Award web site at Duke StatSci. The BEST Award Committee solicits… read more »

Dukees Elected to ISBA Leadership

Several Dukees from Statistical Science-- including several Ph.D. alums and one current faculty member-- are elected to leadership positions in the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) in the fall 2014 elections. Among those elected are: Assistant Professor Li Ma, as Secretary of the ISBA Section on Bayesian Nonparametrics Omar Aguilar, as Chair-Elect of the ISBA Section on Economics, Finance and Business Carlos Carvalho, as a member of the ISBA Board of Directors Gabriel Huerta, as Secretary of the ISBA… read more »

Mike West is recipient of award from ASA NC Chapter

Mike West, the Duke University distinguished Arts & Sciences Professor of Statistics and Decision Sciences, has been honored with a distinguished award from the NC Chapter of the American Statistical Association. The award was announced and presented at the October 10-12, 2014 International Conference on Advances in Interdisciplinary Statistics and Combinatorics. West, a plenary speaker at the conference, was recognized for his outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of statistics, and particularly for his… read more »

Mike West wins Zellner Medal

Mike West, the Arts & Sciences Professor of Statistics and Decision Sciences, was  recently recognized by the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) through the award of the ISBA Zellner Medal. Named for the founding President of the Society, the medal is awarded  once every two years to (at most two) statisticians in recognition of their   " ... outstanding service to Bayesian statistics and the society." 2014 was the first year of the award. The presentation was made at the latest in the… read more »

Bayes Impact

Bayes Impact is a nonprofit organization that deploys data science teams to work with civic and nonprofit organizations on solving big social impact challenges. They are leveraging the power of the data revolution to positively impact the community.  Bayes Impact will be presenting example projects and the opportunities for interested students. Students engage in projects during the school year, and some projects could link into students' course requirements for research.  Current Bayes Impact projects include… read more »

2014 JSM Alumni Dinner

It's time for the annual Department JSM Alumni dinner in Boston! Monday, August 4, 2014 Social time: 6:30pm Dinner: 7:00pm Location: Seaport Boston Hotel, 1 Seaport Lane, Boston, MA 02210, (617) 385-4000 Register and pay online now!  Students/new grads/postdocs $45  others $60    Contact Karen you don't have your user name and password (you may go to http://stat.duke.edu/user) and request a new password if you have your email or user name) read more »

PhD Student - Alumni Fund

We are very pleased to announce the establishment of the Statistical Science Ph.D. Student - Alumni Fund, with an inaugural gift from one one of our Ph.D. alums. The fund provides discretionary resources used by and on behalf of current Ph.D. students. This public announcement serves to express the gratitude of the department, on behalf of all current and future Ph.D. students, to the founding alum as well as future benefactors. . read more »

2014 New Logo & T-Shirts

Per the recent announcement from GCC, we have new T-shirts arriving that sport the official new StatSci@Duke logo designed by current grad student Xiangyu Wang, and wording styled by Avi Moondra. The shirts will be available soon, and in time for ISBA 2014 as well as to proudly sport at other events. Here is the new logo, and here are back+front snapshots showing the logo, wording and the lovely new T-shirt color.   read more »

Kenichiro McAlinn receives 2013-14 BEST Award, Ruilin Zhong receives an honorable mention

The 2013-14 BEST Award was announced during the Annual Graduation Reception of the Department of Statistical Science, Devil's Den, Duke University, on Sunday May 11th 2014. BEST Award Winner 2013-14: Statistical Science rising second year PhD student Kenichiro McAlinn, based on his research project proposal entitled Inter-Temporal Aggregation for Online Bayesian Analysis of Dynamic Models. BEST Award honorable mention: Conferred on Statistical Science rising senior undergraduate student Ruilin Zhong, based on her research… read more »

Jerry Reiter receives Gertrude M. Cox Award

The Washington Statistical Society (WSS) and RTI International are pleased to announce that Jerome (Jerry) P. Reiter, Mrs. Alexander Hehmeyer Professor of Statistical Science, Duke University has been chosen as this year's recipient of the Gertrude M. Cox Award. The Award, established in 2003 through a joint agreement between WSS and RTI, recognizes statisticians in early to mid-career who have made significant contributions to statistical practice.  The award is in memory of Gertrude M. Cox (1900-1978), who in the… read more »

Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel recepient of Trinity College Distinguished Teaching Award

Congratulations to Mine for being selected as the 2013-2014 recipient of the David and Janet Vaughn Brooks Treaching Award!  This Trinity College Distinghuished Teaching Award is one of four that recognizes outstanding teaching in the College.  Recipients are selected on the basis of their ability to encourage intellectual excitement and curiosity in students, knowledge of a field and ability to communicate it, organizational skills, mentorship of students, and commitment to excellent teaching!   http://m.… read more »