Celebrating our talented community
At the Department of Statistics, we set a high standard of excellence. From internationally recognized researchers to rising undergraduate and graduate students who will shape the future of statistics and data science, our community continues to earn some of the highest honors in academia, research, and service.
In recent years, our community has received awards from the National Science Foundation, American Statistical Association, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, among many others. That’s in addition to our outstanding TAs and other students making an impact every day on the next generation of statisticians and data scientists.
We’re proud to celebrate the contributions of our faculty, staff, and students who are advancing the incredible problem-solving power of statistics.
Faculty, Staff, and Student Awards
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Faculty & Staff Award Recipients
| Recipient | Award | Year of Award |
|---|---|---|
| Kris Sankaran | Letters & Science Distinguished Honors Faculty Award | 2025 |
| Grace Wahba (Professor Emerita) | International Prize in Statistics | 2025 |
| Cecile Ane | Inaugural UW–Madison Inaugural Open Hall of Fame Inductee | 2025 |
| Miaoyan Wang | Stanford Science Visiting Professorship Award | 2025 |
| Richard Chappell | Distinguished Visiting Professor, City University of Hong Kong | 2025 |
| Joshua Cape | Associate Editor, JBES & CSDA | 2025 |
| Debdeep Pati | JASA Reproducibility Award | 2024 |
| Carmela Diosana | Letters & Science Distinguished Achievement Advising Award | 2024 |
| Jessi Cisewski-Kehe | NSF CAREER Award | 2024 |
| Chunming Zhang | Medallion Award and Lecture, Institute of Mathematical Statistics; Plenary Lecture at IMS World Congress | 2024 |
| Chunming Zhang | Elected Member, International Statistical Institute (ISI) | 2024 |
| Jessi Cisewski-Kehe | Co-PI: CDS&E Nanoparticle-Protein Interaction Project | 2024 |
| Matthias Katzfuss | Fellow, American Statistical Association | 2024 |
| Yazhen Wang | Introductory Overview Lecture (IOL) at JSM | 2024 |
| Michael Newton | Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Innovation Award | 2023 |
| Sunduz Keles | ASA fellow | 2023 |
| Nicolas Garcia Trillos | NSF CAREER Award | 2023 |
| Sameer Deshpande | JASA Reproducibility Award | 2023 |
| Yingqiu He | IMS New Researcher Travel Award | 2023 |
| Yeonhee Park | Johnson and Johnson WiSTEM2D Scholars Award | 2023 |
| Guanhua Chen | NIH Long COVID Computational Challenge | 2023 |
| Michael Newton | Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) Innovation Award | 2023 |
| Sunduz Keles | ASA fellow | 2023 |
| Nicolas Garcia Trillos | NSF CAREER Award | 2023 |
| Sameer Deshpande | JASA Reproducibility Award | 2023 |
| Yingqiu He | IMS New Researcher Travel Award | 2023 |
| Yeonhee Park | Johnson and Johnson WiSTEM2D Scholars Award | 2023 |
| Guanhua Chen | NIH Long COVID Computational Challenge | 2023 |
| Christina Kendzorski | Kellet Mid-Career Award | 2022 |
| Claudia Solis-Lemus | NSF Career Award | 2022 |
| Anru Zhang | IMS Tweedie New Researcher Award | 2022 |
| Chunming Zhang | IMS Medallion Award and Lecturer 2024 | 2022 |
| Guanhua Chen | Task 1 Winner of Pediatric COVID-19 Data Challenge | 2022 |
| Miaoyan Wang | NSF Career Award | 2022 |
| Anru Zhang | Bernoulli Society New Researcher Award | 2021 |
| Anru Zhang | Noether Young Scholar | 2021 |
| Grace Wahba | Honorary Doctorate of Science from Ohio State University | TBA |
| Grace Wahba | IMS Grace Wahba Award and Lecture | 2021 |
| Zhengjun Zhang | IMS Fellow | 2021 |
| Cecile Ane | H.I. Romnes Faculty Fellow | 2018 |
Student Award Recipients
| Recipient | Award | Year of Award | Advisor(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Sullivan, Shekhar Shah | Finalists, NFL Big Data Bowl | 2026 | Sameer Deshpande |
| Barnabás Valkó | Honorable Mention, NFL Big Data Bowl | 2026 | Sameer Deshpande |
| Cameron Jones | Campus-Wide TA Award: Advanced Achievement in Teaching | 2025-26 | Kris Sankaran |
| Xinran Miao | IMS Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Kuan-Jung (Elaine) Chiu | IMS Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Xinran Miao | ASA Statistical Learning Data Science (SLDS) Best Student Paper Award | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Ryan Yee | ASA Section on Bayesian Statistical Science Best Student Paper Award | 2025 | Sameer Deshpande |
| Soham Ghosh | ASA Section on Bayesian Statistical Science Best Student Paper Award | 2025 | Sameer Deshpande |
| Soham Ghosh | IMS Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award | 2025 | Sameer Deshpande |
| Yalei Zhao | Letters & Science Trewartha Senior Honors Thesis Research Award | 2025 | Rick Chappell |
| Jingqi Duan | ENAR Distinguished Student Paper Award | 2025 | Sunduz Keles, Hyunseung Kang |
| Alex Hayes | ASA Section on Business and Economics Best Student Paper Award | 2025 | Keith Levin, Karl Rohe |
| Sixtus Dakurah | ASA Wisconsin Chapter Poster Award | 2025 | Jessi Cisewski-Kehe |
| Elaine K. Chiu | NESS Student Research Award | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Elaine K. Chiu | ICSA Student Paper Award | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Xinran Miao | NESS Student Research Award | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Xinran Miao | SLDS Best Student Paper Award (non-ASA) | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Deborah Mensah Bennor | ENAR FDBW Travel Award | 2025 | Alejandra Quintos |
| Deborah Mensah Bennor | Statistics TA Award (Honorable Mention) | 2025 | Alejandra Quintos |
| Xindi Lin | ASA Student & Early Career Travel Fund | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Xindi Lin | NESS Student Research Award | 2025 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Zhexuan Liu | IMS Frontiers in Statistical Machine Learning Travel Award | 2025 | Yiqiao Zhong |
| Ryan Yee | SBSS Student Paper Award | 2025 | Sameer Deshpande |
| Jingyun Jia | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2025 | Benjamin Lengerich |
| Junhyung Chang | Summer Research Fellowship | 2025 | Joshua Cape |
| Michael Harding | NeurIPS 2025 Scholar Award | 2025 | Kirthevasan Kandasamy |
| Steven Moen | Summer Research Fellowship from the Department of Statistics | 2025 | Yazhen Wang |
| Cameron Jones | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2025 | Kris Sankaran |
| Jingyang Lyu | NESS Student Poster Award | 2025 | Yiqiao Zhong |
| Jingyang Lyu | MMLS Honorable Mention Poster Award | 2025 | Yiqiao Zhong |
| Jingyang Lyu | FSML Travel Award | 2025 | Yiqiao Zhong |
| Runshi Tang | Travel Scholarship (Social Work & IRP) | 2025 | Anru Zhang; Richard Chappell |
| Runshi Tang | IMS Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award | 2025 | Anru Zhang; Richard Chappell |
| Chenyang Jiang | Summer Research Fellowship | 2025 | Yazhen Wang |
| Evan Gorstein | UW Student Research Grants Competition Presentation Award | 2025 | Claudia Solis-Lemus |
| Sixu Li | SIAM Conference Student Travel Award | 2025 | Nicholas Garcia-Trillos |
| Chenfeng Wu | Statistics-VISP Academic Excellence Scholarship | 2025 | — |
| Nikhil Adyapak | Best Presenter Award, Data Engineering Dept Meeting, Bosch Global Software Technologies (BGSW) | 2024 | — |
| Nikhil Adyapak | Top Achiever Award, Data Engineering Dept, Bosch Global Software Technologies (BGSW) | 2024 | — |
| Eton Tackett | David H. Durra Scholarship (UW–Madison) | 2024 | — |
| Eton Tackett | Terry Millar Memorial Scholarship | 2024 | — |
| Eton Tackett | Frank D. Cady Mathematics Scholarship | 2024 | — |
| Xindi Li | ASA Student Paper Award in Nonparametrics | 2024 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Soham Ghosh | Best Poster Award (IISA) | 2024 | Sameer Deshpande |
| Chanwoo Lee | Lawrence D. Brown Best PhD Student Paper Award | 2024 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Cameron Jones | Lead Teaching Mentor – L&S TA Training & Support Team | 2024 | Kris Sankaran |
| Yabo Niu | JASA Reproducibility Award | 2024 | Debdeep Pati |
| Elaine K. Chiu | IMPS Duolingo Travel Award | 2024 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Xinran Miao | SCI Travel Scholarship (Society for Causal Inference) | 2024 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Xindi Lin | Best Student Paper Award (ASA Section on Nonparametric Statistics) | 2024 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Junhyung Chang | Poster Award, Student Poster Competition (Wisconsin Chapter of ASA) | 2024 | Joshua Cape |
| Junhyung Chang | Poster Award (Top 5), Institute for Research in Statistics and its Applications (IRSA) | 2024 | Joshua Cape |
| Runshi Tang | Student & Early Career Travel Fund (ASA) | 2024 | Anru Zhang and Richard Chappell |
| Runshi Tang | SRGC Conference Presentation Award (UW–Madison) | 2024 | Anru Zhang and Richard Chappell |
| Alex Hayes | L&S Teaching Mentor | 2023 | — |
| Chenghui Li | NeurIPS 2023 Scholar Award | 2023 | Nicolas Garcia-Trillos |
| Michael Harding | Outstanding Performance as a TA for a Gateway Course | 2023 | Kirthevasan Kandasamy |
| Steven Moen | Student Research Grants Competition – Combined Award | 2023 | Yazhen Wang |
| Chenghui Li | Great Lake SIAM Travel Grant | 2023 | Nicolas Garcia-Trillos |
| Chenyang Jiang | Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award | 2023 | Yazhen Wang |
| Yuetian Luo | IMS Lawrence D. Brown PhD Student Award | 2023 | Nicolas Garcia-Trillos |
| Cameron Jones | Letters & Science Teaching Mentors | 2023 | — |
| Taiyu Ye | Letters & Science Teaching Mentors | 2023 | Chunming Zhang |
| Ajinkya Kokandakar | Student Research Grants Competition from UW-Madison for conference traveling | 2023 | Sameer Deshpande |
| Chanwoo Lee | ASA Section on Statistical Learning and Data Science Best Student Paper Award | 2023 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Chanwoo Lee | New England Statistical Society Student Research Award | 2023 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Jiaxin Hu | Student Research Grants Competition from UW-Madison for conference traveling | 2023 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Soham Ghosh | ASA Section on Statistics in Genomics and Genetics Best Student Paper Award | 2023 | Guanhua Chen, Zhengzheng Tang |
| Kwangmoon Park | ENAR Distinguished Student Paper Award | 2023 | Sunduz Keles |
| Kwangmoon Park | ASA Section on Statistics in Genomics and Genetics Best Student Paper Award | 2023 | Sunduz Keles |
| Nathan Kolbow | WID 100 Travel Award and a travel award from the Plant Pathology Professional Development Fund | 2023 | Claudia Solís-Lemus |
| Kwangmoon Park | ENAR Distinguished Student Paper Award | 2022 | Sunduz Keles |
| Nathan Kolvow | WID100 Student Conference Travel Grant | 2022 | Claudia Solis-Lemus |
| Yuetian Luo | IMS Lawrence D. Brown PhD Student Award | 2022 | Anru Zhang |
| Zhaoxing Wu | Hilldale Undergaduate/Faculty Research Award | 2022 | Claudia Solis-Lemus |
| Yuliang Peng | Trewartha Senior Honors Thesis Research Award | 2022 | Kris Sankaran |
| Donald Conway and Ayushi Mishra | MinneAnalytics Scholarship | 2022 | — |
| Jifan Gao and Zhoujingpeng Wei | 1st Place in the DREAM Challenge for Pre-term Birth Prediction. | 2022 | Zheng-Zheng Teng and Guanhua Chen |
| Donald Conway | MinneAnalytics Scholarship | 2022 | — |
| Ayushi Mishra | MinneAnalytics Scholarship | 2022 | — |
| Gefei (Sylvia) Song | Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Award | 2022 | Qiongshi Lu |
| MeleEvergreen-Hehemie Pluviose | Lime Connect Fellowship Finalist | 2022 | Carmela Diosona |
| Zhongxuan Sun | Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Award | 2022 | Qiongshi Lu |
| Wen Ye | Undergradaute Scholarship for Summer Study | 2022 | Song Gao |
| Wen Ye | Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Award | 2022 | Song Gao |
| Joowon Lee | WiSH Student Research Grant Competition Winner | 2022 | Peter Chien |
| Chenyue (Karen) Wu | Filene Research Institute's Undergraduate Case Competition | 2022 | — |
| Bella Wu | Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Award | 2022 | Claudia Solis-Lemus |
| Chanwoo Lee | IMS Hannan Graduate student Travel Award | 2022 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Chan Park | The Norman Breslow Prize | 2022 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Chan Park | IMS Hannan Graduate Student Travel Award | 2022 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Chan Park | IMS Lawrence D. Brown Ph.D. Student Award | 2022 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Steven Moen | L&S TA Mentorship Award | 2022 | Zhengjun Zhang, Yahzen Wang |
| Steven Moen | ASA John J. Bartko Award | 2022 | Zhengjun Zhang, Yahzen Wang |
| Chanwoo Lee | Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) Hannan Travel Award | 2022 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Jiaxin Hu | Best Stduent Paper Award-Honorable Mention in ASA Statistical Learning and Data Science Section | 2022 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Steven Moen | John J. Bartko Scholarship | 2022 | Zhengjun Zhang, Yahzen Wang |
| Chan Park | IMS Lawrence D. Brown Ph.D. Student Award | 2022 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Rungang Han | IMS Lawrence D. Brown Ph.D. Student Award | 2022 | Anru Zhang |
| Jiaxin Hu | Best Student Paper Award - Honorable Mention | 2022 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Sean Kent | Student Grants & Awards | 2021 | Menggang Yu |
| Wen Ye | MinneAnalytics Scholarship | 2021 | — |
| Chan Park | ASA Biometrics Student Paper Award | 2021 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Jiaxin Hu | ASA section of Statistical Computing and Graphics best student paper | 2021 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Chanwoo Lee | ASA section of Statistical Computing and Graphics best student paper | 2021 | Miaoyan Wang |
| Juan Francisco Mandujano Reyes | Ce-an Zuo & Chao-ming Wang Scholarship | 2021 | — |
| Michael Mays | L&S Continuity of Instruction Award | 2021 | — |
| Rungang Han | ASA Section of Learning and Data Science Best Student Paper Award | 2021 | Anru Zhang |
| Yuetian Luo | ASA Section of Learning and Data Science Best Student Paper Award | 2021 | Anru Zhang |
| Shushu Zhang | ASA Lingzi Lu Memorial Award | 2021 | Vivak Patel |
| Yuchen Zhou | IMS Hannan Graduate student Travel Award | 2021 | Anru Zhang, Yazhen Wang |
| Steven Moen | Outstanding Teaching for a Gateway Course | 2021 | — |
| Sixtus Dakurah | Outstanding Teaching for an Undergraduate Course | 2021 | — |
| Linquan Ma | Outstanding Teaching for a Graduate Course | 2021 | Hyunseung Kang |
| Shushu Zhang | ASA Lingzi Lu Memorial Award | 2021 | Vivak Patel |
| Liam Johnston | IEEE Conference on Decision and Control Student Travel Award | 2020 | Vivak Patel |
| Sean Kent | Honorable Mention in John Hunter Excellence in Plotting | 2020 | Menggang Yu |
| Srikanth Aravamuthan | Honorable Mention in John Hunter Excellence in Plotting | 2020 | Menggang Yu |
Student Scholarship & Award Opportunities
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MinneAnalytics Scholarship
| MinneAnalytics, a nonprofit organization serving the Upper Midwest, offers scholarships to undergrad students who display a passion for pursuing a career in analytics and a commitment to engaging with the community. The number of awards has increased annually since 2015. Learn more about MinneAnalyics scholarship opportunities. |
CDIS Ce-an Zuo & Chao-ming Wang Scholarship
| The CDIS Ce-an Zuo & Chao-ming Wang Scholarship is a $1,000 award given to an international statistics graduate student every other year. Applications for the award simply require a short statement about how the funds will be used to support the student's success in the department. Applications are announced and due during the spring term. The first award was given in the Spring 2021. |
TA Awards
The Statistics department could not accomplish its teaching mission without the contributions of Teaching Assistants (TAs), and values the excellent work of TAs in Statistics courses. Department TA awards recognize teaching excellence in 3 categories: gateway courses (STAT 301, STAT 324, STAT 371) which serve over 3000 non-statistics majors every year; statistics courses that serve undergraduate students (excluding gateway courses); and statistics courses that serve graduate students. The TA committee considers all TAs who taught statistics courses in the Fall and Spring of each academic year. Nominations are not necessary. Teaching excellence is evaluated by both students and instructors. Award winners in one academic year are not eligible for the same award the next academic year. Pending departmental funding, award winners receive up to $500 and honorable mention winners receive up to $250.
TA Award Winners
| Recipient | Award | Year of Award |
| Jacob Johnson | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2024-2025 |
| Cameron Jones | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2024-2025 |
| Roddy Taing | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2024-2025 |
| Deborah Bennor | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2024-2025 |
| Xiaobin Zhou | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2024-2025 |
| Jingyun Jia | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2024-2025 |
| Kyungjin Sohn | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2023-2024 |
| Young-Joo Yun | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2023-2024 |
| Xinran Miao | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2023-2024 |
| Beom Kwon | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2023-2024 |
| Auden Krauska | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2023-2024 |
| Zhihao Zhao | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2023-2024 |
| Michael Harding | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2022-2023 |
| Nathaniel Pritchard | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2022-2023 |
| Chenyang Jiang | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2022-2023 |
| Jun Hyung Chang | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2022-2023 |
| Cameron Jones | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2022-2023 |
| Jiaxin Hu | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2022-2023 |
| James Hubbs | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2021-2022 |
| Manjusha Kancharla | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2021-2022 |
| Taiyu Ye | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2021-2022 |
| Ryan Yee | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2021-2022 |
| Nathaniel Pritchard | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2021-2022 |
| Chanwoo Lee | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2021-2022 |
| Steven Moen | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2020-2021 |
| Sixtus Dakurah | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2020-2021 |
| Linquan Ma | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2020-2021 |
| Siyu Zhang | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2020-2021 |
| Sijia Fang | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2020-2021 |
| Taiyu Ye | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2020-2021 |
| Susan Glenn | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2019-2020 |
| Siyu Wang | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2019-2020 |
| Yongjoon Kim | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2019-2020 |
| Michael Mays | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2019-2020 |
| Elina Choi | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2019-2020 |
| Rungang Han | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2019-2020 |
| Alex Hayes | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2018-2019 |
| Sijing Li | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2018-2019 |
| Chan Park | Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2018-2019 |
| MJ Foster | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Gateway Courses | 2018-2019 |
| Yi Li | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Undergraduate Courses | 2018-2019 |
| Peigen Zhou | Honorable Mention in the category of Outstanding Performance as a TA for Graduate Courses | 2018-2019 |