As they say, it’s been a minute! The Department of Statistics newsletter has been on hiatus so there’s much news to update. I hope you enjoy our new format, an electronic form distributed via e-mail with brief items and reports linked to our departmental news and events webpage where you can continue reading and find more details. |
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As I write this, I am mid-way through my first semester as Interim Department Head. I took the reins in June from TN Sriram who served eight years leading the department through many changes and generating much progress. Guiding the department through a move to north campus, the introduction of new degree programs, many personnel changes, rapid growth in credit-hour production and degrees conferred, and significant increases in external funding and philanthropic giving, TN has made a profound and lasting impact. I want to thank TN for his dedicated and capable service and for a smooth transition.
I am working hard to continue the positive momentum, and at present, the department remains on a roll. The most significant development on the horizon is a new online master’s degree program in Applied Data Science. A proposal for this program as an area of emphasis in our existing MS degree program in Data Science is currently working its way through the college and university approval process. If all goes as planned, we will be accepting applications soon for a launch in Fall 2025. This is an exciting initiative that will bring new courses, new faculty, new students, and new opportunities.
This newsletter provides additional updates on recent initiatives, accomplishments, and changes. This is our way to stay in touch and we hope you will reciprocate. We always enjoy hearing from alumni, former faculty, and anyone else with a connection to the department. Your feedback and friendship mean so much! With best wishes to all, Dan Hall Professor and Interim Head, Department of Statistics Director of the UGA Statistical Consulting Center |
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Our faculty and students are doing innovative and amazing things:
Wenxuan Zhong is now the UGA Athletic Associate Professor in Statistics. This honor, the first named professorship of its kind in our department, recognizes her outstanding achievements and commitment to advancing statistical knowledge.
Our faculty continue to be recognized for top-notch teaching, with Catherine Case and Maduranga Dassayanake earning back-to-back Sandy Beaver Excellence in Teaching Awards from the Franklin College in 2022 and 2023, respectively. Other recent teaching honors went to Monsur Chowdhury, the 2022 recipient of the Franklin College Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award, and Mickey Dunlap
, who received an Award of Excellence for Teaching from the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Tifton Campus.
In 2022, Ping Ma was named an Honorary Fellow of the American Associate for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), an extremely prestigious honor that ranks Ping among an elite tier of US scholars.
Sloka Sudhin, a data science and applied mathematics double major, was chosen as a recipient of the Midterm Foundation Fellowship in summer 2024, receiving a full-ride stipend award supporting the last two years of her undergraduate degree.
PhD student Jeevan Jankar was awarded the 2023 George Hugh Boyd Memorial Scholarship. Recipients of this award are expected to have high moral and academic standards and a philosophy of giving back to the community.
For more departmental news regarding faculty staff and student honors and achievements, please visit our news page. |
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In the past three years, the department has hired nine faculty members, including instructional faculty members Sarangan Balasubramaniam, Linruo Guo, and Joseph Powell; tenure-track faculty, Mandev Gill, Yang Yang, Ruizhi Zhang, Aditya Mishra, and Rongjie Liu; and SCC Associate Director, Jinae Lee. Currently, Ms. Madison McCormick fills the role of Student Affairs Professional, and we are hiring an Administrative Associate.
The department’s Statistical Consulting Center (SCC) welcomes new Associate Director, Dr. Jinae Lee. For details and more news of the SCC, you’ll find a full update here. Promotions: |
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To Associate Professor: Shuyang (Ray) Bai (Fa22), Yuan Ke (Fa23), Qian Xiao (Fa23).
- Tenured: Ting Zhang (Fa23).
- To Principal Lecturer: Mark Werner (Fa23).
- To Senior Lecturer: Catherine Case (Fa22), Mickey Dunlap (Fa22), Maduranga Dassayanake (Fa23), Monsur Chowdhury (Fa24).
- To Lecturer: Nick Toebben (Fa23).
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One of our biggest annual events is the Bradley Lecture, named after the late Ralph A. Bradley. Occurring in late April, the event focuses on talks by an eminent guest speaker, with recent speakers including Dr. Dipak Kumar Dey (2024), Dr. Dylan Small (2023), and Dr. Jianqing Fan (2022). The program features a late afternoon research talk, followed by a catered meal and after-dinner talk, usually of a lighter, less-technical nature. The departmental picnic is also held the Saturday following the Bradley Lecture, making the weekend a great time for our students, faculty, and alumni to connect. Please consider attending April 18, 2025, when we will be excited to welcome
Daniela Witten as the 2025 Bradley speaker.
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Georgia Statistics Day is a stimulating opportunity to meet, share, and collaborate with statisticians from around the state and region for this rotating conference between Emory, Georgia Tech, and UGA. Our department last hosted the event October 2022. Thanks to the hard work of Abhyuday Mandal, TN Sriram, and other organizers, the event welcomed over 180 participants. In addition to a keynote address by Professor Nilan Chatterjee from Johns Hopkins University, the conference featured a student poster session attracting 35 graduate students and 8 undergraduate students, and academic and industry-focused talks. Georgia Statistics Day is a great event every year, we hope to see you when we host the conference Fall 2025!
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After the successful Fall 2019 launch of our undergraduate major in data science, we launched a master’s degree program in Spring 2023. Like its predecessor, the new MS in Data Science is a collaborative effort of the School of Computing and the Department of Statistics with coursework in both disciplines, including new courses on "Foundations of Data Science and Statistical Inference for Data Scientists" and a master’s project requirement. In addition, students take a variety of computing and statistics elective courses to provide breadth and depth in this rapidly evolving discipline.
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