Wake Forest Stats

👏 We're celebrating another alum award this week! Biqing Yang (M.S. Wake Forest University, now a PhD Candidate at @OhioState ) won the Whitney Award for Research from the Department of Statistics at Ohio State. Congrats! 🔗 Read more: stat.osu.edu/news/whitney-a…

👏 We're so excited to hear that M.S. Alum Xinyu Zhang (now a PhD Candidate in Statistics at @OhioState) has won a Student Paper Award from the American Statistical Association (ASA) Section on Bayesian Statistical Sciences! 🔗 Read more: stat.osu.edu/news/xinyu-zha…

🆕 New week, new pub! Mostafa Shams, Ph.D. (Teacher-Scholar Postdoc) is a coauthor on a recently published study in @JAMANetworkOpen with collaborators from Allegheny Health Network and Wellstar Paulding Medical Center. 🔗 jamanetwork.com/journals/jaman…

This comp is "a showcase for emerging stats communicators capable of reaching a nonspecialist audience with attention-grabbing stories that challenge myths, shape decisions, and explain the world around us." Finalists present at @RoyalStatSoc Annual Conference in Edinburgh!

🏆 Thrilled to see our own @SarahLotspeich (Assistant Prof) among the three finalists for Significance Magazine's 2025 Statistical Excellence Award for Early Career Writing! 🏆

👏 Earlier this month, Associate Teaching Professor Nicole Dalzell was invited to present "Mentoring Matters: Tips for Research and Writing with Mentees of all Levels" at the 2025 Southern Region Council on Statistics (SRCOS) in Jekyll Island, Georgia. Awesome work!

👏 Last week Professor Kenneth @berenhaut was invited to present his research on "Distance, density and cohesion in clustering" at the Classification Society's Annual Meeting in Ottawa, Canada. Well done!

👏 Huge congratulations to Assistant Prof @sarahlotspeich for her Societal Impact Award from the @cwstat! Dr. Lotspeich is being recognized for her outstanding efforts and impact on social justice through your collaboration, leadership, and partnerships.

Read more here: earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/154302/…

🆕 Courtney Di Vittorio's research (Affiliate Faculty) was highlighted by NASA! Her project on Louisiana's wetlands engaged students from all over @WakeForest, including two of Wake Stats Masters Alums, Melita Wiles and Saeed Movahedi!

🏔️ This week, Wake Stats is heading to Salt Lake City for the 2025 ASA Symposium on Data Science & Statistics! 🎤 Dr. Noah Gade (Assistant Prof) will discuss a novel measure of functional connectivity using permutations, with applications to neuronal response data.

👏 Last Friday, Nikolas Lindauer successfully defended his M.S. thesis in Statistics at @WakeForest! Congratulations to Nikolas and his incredible advisor, @StatStaci5, on an impact-driven project that showcased the stats while keeping North Carolinians' health at the forefront.

⚾️ Today senior John Nelson presented on "Quality and Longevity of MLB Pitchers Post-Tommy John Surgery" to his colleagues in the SESH Lab! He has worked with Dr. Staci Hepler (Assoc Prof/Vice Chair) on it. Next week he'll be starting his new job at #InmarIntelligence! Go, Jack!

👏 Huge congratulations to Dr. Lynne Yengulalp (Associate Prof), who was recognized yesterday with a @WakeForest "Thrive Dimension Champion Award," recognizing excellence demonstrated through programming, teaching, or other collaborative efforts within the Wake community.

🍃 This work was supported by a seed grant from the @WFUSabinCenter. 🔗 doi.org/10.1002/sim.70…

🆕 New week, new pub! @sarahlotspeich (Assistant Prof) published in Statistics in Medicine (@WileyGlobal) with @wakeforest colleagues @ashleymullan (MS alum, now PhDing @VUMChealth), @lucystats (Assistant Prof), and @StatStaci5 (Vice Chair/Associate Prof).

🎙️ This afternoon Nikolas Lindauer (BS from Rice University) will defend his M.S. thesis in Statistics entitled "Modeling Legal Strategies for Opioid Harm Reduction in North Carolina," advised by Dr. Staci Hepler (Vice Chair, Associate Professor). Go, Nikolas!

👏 We are so excited to welcome @BhramarBioStat to @WakeForest/@wakeforestmed this week for our 3rd Annual Distinguished Lectureship in Statistics and Biostatistics! Faculty and students can't wait to hear about "The Importance of Statistical Thinking in an AI-Augmented World."

🆕 This week, we're celebrating new publications from two of our @WakeForest teacher-scholars in the @JStatEd! Drs. Ciaran Evans and @lucystats (both assistant profs) propose novel pedagogical tools for teaching regression and data wrangling in R.

🎷 Next week, Wake Stats is heading to New Orleans for the 2025 Eastern North American Region (ENAR) Spring Meeting! Six of our incredible faculty, students, and alums will be sharing their research. Stay tuned for details on each of their presentations!