Category: News and announcements

Data science club hackathon enables hundreds of UW–Madison students to create and innovate together

‘On the cutting edge’: Statistical Consulting Group enhances diverse research projects across UW–Madison campus

Data is central to scientific research, especially as the digital revolution enables researchers from across fields to collect, analyze and distribute troves of data in ever-more sophisticated ways. Scholars in virtually every discipline, including those at UW–Madison, can now harness innovative statistics and data science approaches to answer questions like “Why do birds make so …

Statistics major Yalei Zhao wins prestigious undergraduate thesis award

Yalei Zhao x’25, a Statistics and Mathematics double major at UW–Madison, was recently honored with the Trewartha Senior Honors Thesis Research Award from the College of Letters & Science (L&S). The grant recognizes outstanding undergraduate research proposals and empowers L&S Honors Program students to conduct more extensive senior Honors thesis research projects than would otherwise …

Statistics researchers thrive in pioneering semester-long research program on statistical genomics

This past fall, faculty and graduate students from the Department of Statistics, and other units at UW–Madison, participated in an intensive semester-long research program hosted by the Institute for Computational and Experimental Research in Mathematics (ICERM) at Brown University, entitled Theory, Methods, and Applications of Quantitative Phylogenomics. Among the program’s organizers were two UW–Madison faculty …

Celebrating winter 2024 graduates from the Department of Statistics

The Department of Statistics is proud to celebrate our newest class of 186 extraordinary graduates. The group includes those earning bachelor’s degrees and certificates in Data Science and Statistics, in addition to several students obtaining graduate degrees. Our graduates have bright futures ahead as leaders in the rapidly growing, interconnected fields of data science and …

Faculty Q&A: Jessi Cisewski-Kehe on winning NSF CAREER Award

Associate Professor Jessi Cisewski-Kehe has received a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award, the NSF’s most prestigious award for early-career faculty members. Her research is focused on developing innovative methods using Topological Data Analysis (TDA), which enables researchers to look for patterns in noisy datasets by scrutinizing the shape of the data in space—and looking …

Statistics alum and renowned researcher Wing Hung Wong wins CDIS Distinguished Achievement Award

Wing Hung Wong PhD ‘80, one of the world’s premier scholars in statistics and bioinformatics, has received an inaugural Distinguished Achievement Award from the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS). Wong, a luminary in statistics and biomedical data science, has served on the faculty at Stanford University since 2004, where he remains a …

Erickson steps down, Arpaci-Dusseau to lead School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences

Tom Erickson, executive associate dean for strategy and innovation and founding director of the School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s College of Letters & Science, has announced he will step down from his leadership roles effective January 2025. Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, the Grace Wahba and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor …

Student spotlight: Valeria Diaz Moreno pushes boundaries for women in STEM

Some students skip calculus class, even when required to attend. Valeria Diaz Moreno x’26 flipped that script: she snuck into a university calculus class before she was old enough to enroll. Growing up in Medellín, Colombia, Moreno said, many schools tended to “place a lot of importance on the humanities,” rather than science and mathematics. …

Department of Statistics bolsters teaching and research prowess with 7 new hires for fall 2024

Seven statistical scholars and educators from around the country have converged on Madison to join the Department of Statistics this fall, enabling the department to further enhance its strengths in the teaching and research of statistics and data science. The group includes one professor, two assistant professors, three teaching faculty and a lecturer. Learn more …