Alejandra Quintos is eager and honored to join the Department of Statistics as an Assistant Professor in Fall 2022. Originally from Puebla, Mexico, she completed her Ph.D. in Statistics at Columbia University under the direction of Professor Philip Protter. She is a Fulbright alumna and a 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 Columbia University Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching by a Graduate Student finalist. As an undergraduate student, she received a merit scholarship to major in Actuarial Sciences at Universidad de las Americas in Puebla from where she graduated Summa Cum Laude and was Valedictorian of her class.
Her research interests include problems in probability, stochastic processes, and statistics motivated by their applications, particularly in mathematical finance and more specifically in credit risk theory.
In her free time, Alejandra enjoys running. She has run 8 marathons so far and she is currently training for the 2022 Chicago Marathon.
Dr. Yinqiu He will join the Department of Statistics as an Assistant Professor starting Fall 2022. Prior to moving to Madison, she was a postdoctoral research fellow in the Data Science Institute at Columbia University, where she was supervised by Prof. Zhiliang Ying. Yinqiu obtained her Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Michigan under the supervision of Prof. Gongjun Xu and Prof. Xuming He in June 2021.
Dr. He is broadly interested in developing theory and methodology for analyzing large-scale and complex-structured data to address scientific problems arising from interdisciplinary studies. Her work spans across high-dimensional statistical inference, rare-event simulation, mediation pathway analysis, network analysis, and statistical machine learning. Alongside, she worked with collaborators on applications in statistical genetics and genomics and psychometrics. Yinqiu is excited about joining the Department of Statistics and pursuing an academic career in Madison. She’s looking forward to greeting everyone and exploring exciting research opportunities, as well as the glittering lakes, in Madison.
Joshua Cape joins the Department of Statistics as a new Assistant Professor. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor of Statistics at the University of Pittsburgh, and before that, he was a National Science Foundation Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Statistics at the University of Michigan, hosted by Liza Levina. He received his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from Johns Hopkins University, advised by Minh Tang and Carey E. Priebe.
Joshua’s research interests include statistical machine learning, multivariate statistics, network analysis, and matrix analysis. In addition to developing methods and theory, he collaborates
with researchers in neuroimaging, biology, economics, and sociology. Joshua is delighted to join the department and contribute to its broad educational mission. In
his spare time, Joshua enjoys recreational athletics, biking, and traveling.
Yiqiao (Joe) Zhong is joining the Department of Statistics as a new assistant professor. Joe did
his undergraduate studies at Peking University with a major in mathematics. Fascinated by Big
Data, Joe pursued his Ph.D. at Princeton University under the supervision of Prof. Jianqing Fan.
Later he went to Stanford University for postdoctoral research, working with Prof. Andrea
Montanari and Prof. David Donoho.
Joe is interested in deep learning theory, particular generalization and optimization properties
of over-parametrized models. Joe is also interested in high-dimensional statistics and
unsupervised learning, with a focus on clustering, network analysis, data visualization, etc.
Joe is happy to be a part of the big family of the Statistics department. Joe enjoys playing chess,
poker, room escape, and other puzzle-solving games. Besides, he loves all kinds of city
activities, such as museums, concerts, operas, and Broadway musicals.