Wake Forest Statistical Sciences

Read about Emily and other outstanding members of the statistical community here (starting on page 5):
magazine.amstat.org/wp-content/u...

💎 Emily Huang (Associate Professor) received a shoutout in Ji-Hyun Lee's "Hidden Gems" President's Corner for @amstatnews.bsky.social. We are so lucky to have you, Emily!

Welcome! You are invited to join a meeting: MS Open House, 10/23 - Wake Forest Department of Statistical Sciences. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the meeting. Virtual open house event to discuss the WFU MS Statistics program and admissions.

✏️ Sign up: wakeforest-university.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

🗓️ Mark your calendars! We’re hosting our first Online Open House for our M.S. in Statistics at @wakeforest.bsky.social on Oct 23 at 7pm (EST). Hear about our program offerings (incl data science certificate), job placement, scholarships, and more.

Associate Professor @lucystats.bsky.social spoke today at the ISI World Statistics Congress in The Hague on how “Causal inference is not just a statistics problem”

You can find her slides here: www.lucymcgowan.com/talk/isi_wor...

Battle of the Bands: Trying to Identify Contributions to a Collaboration In this article, we create and explore a dataset containing musical and lyrical features for tracks from three rock bands – Manchester Orchestra, The Front Bottoms, and All Get Out – all of whom co...

🔗 doi.org/10.1080/2693...

🆕 New ✨ semester ✨ , new pub! Ciaran Evans (Assistant Teaching Prof) and Nicole Dalzell (Associate Teaching Prof) recently published a new music-inspired study in the Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education with collaborators from Colgate University and Furman University.

✈️ Next week, our faculty, students, and alums are headed to Nashville for the 2025 Joint Statistical Meetings! They will be presenting their research, receiving awards, and serving the statistical community.

🗺️ Keep an eye on this page for upcoming details on where to catch Wake Stat!

🆕 New week, new pub! @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social (Assistant Professor) co-authored a recently published study in Gender Issues (Springer Nature) with collaborators from Syracuse University, Hofstra University, and University of Guelph.

🔗 doi.org/10.1007/s121...

Dr. Hepler is being recognized for her influential theoretical and applied work in multivariate and spatio-temporal Bayesian modeling, which she has effectively applied to advance ecological research and opioid misuse survey methodologies.

👏 Huge congratulations to Associate Professor and Associate Chair Staci Hepler, who is the 2025 recipient of the Michael Woodroofe Award from the Caucus for Women in Statistics and Data Science!

👏 We're so excited to hear that M.S. Alum Xinyu Zhang (now a PhD Candidate in Statistics at Ohio State) has won a Student Paper Award from the @amstatnews.bsky.social Section on Bayesian Statistical Sciences!

🔗 Read more: stat.osu.edu/news/xinyu-z...

Associate Professor @lucystats.bsky.social spoke today at the “Character Across the Curriculum” workshop about the importance of curiosity in the era of artificial intelligence — part of @wakeforest.bsky.social Educating Character Initiative and the Program for Leadership and Character

🆕 New week, new pub! Mostafa Shams, Ph.D. (Teacher-Scholar Postdoc) is a coauthor on a recently published study in JAMA Network Open with collaborators from Allegheny Health Network and Wellstar Paulding Medical Center.

🔗 jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

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

🆕 Check out this new article in @hbr.org written by @lucystats.bsky.social (Assistant Prof) and Jeff Camm (Prof in @wakeforest.bsky.social School of Business) demystifying the use of percentages in statistics. Read more ⬇️

Forty Years of Change in Louisiana’s Wetlands Scientists used Landsat satellite images to detect both abrupt and gradual changes and to examine how phenomena, from storms to sea level rise, have reshaped coastal ecosystems.

🆕 Courtney Di Vittorio's research (Affiliate Faculty) was highlighted by NASA! Her project on Louisiana's wetlands engaged students from all over @wakeforest.bsky.social, including two of Wake Stats Masters Alums, Melita Wiles and Saeed Movahedi! Read more: earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/15430...

What a weekend of celebrations at @wakeforest.bsky.social!
🧑‍🎓 On Saturday, we celebrated the hooding of our seven incredible masters students.
🏠 On Sunday, we hosted our graduates and their families for our department open house.
🧑‍🎓 Today, we continue by celebrating our many amazing undergraduates.

Happy Graduation Weekend from the @wakeforeststats.bsky.social faculty!!

Let’s go, grads! 👏 Excited for our marvelous MS grads to get hooded at @wakeforest.bsky.social this afternoon.

🤩 Yesterday, five of our @wakeforest.bsky.social undergraduates shared their statistics honors thesis research. We enjoyed learning about their great work!

📈 Leveling up! It's official! Drs. Lucy D'Agostino McGowan (@lucystats.bsky.social) and Emily Huang have been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor (with tenure). We are so proud of you and lucky to call you both colleagues!

🏔️ 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.bsky.social! Congratulations to Nikolas and his incredible advisor, Dr. Staci Hepler, on an impact-driven project that showcased the stats while keeping North Carolinians' health at the forefront.

⚾️ Today senior John Nelson presented his research 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.bsky.social "Thrive Dimension Champion Award," recognizing excellence demonstrated through programming, teaching, or other collaborative efforts within the Wake community.

Combining Straight‐Line and Map‐Based Distances to Investigate the Connection Between Proximity to Healthy Foods and Disease Healthy foods are essential for a healthy life, but accessing healthy food can be more challenging for some people than others. This disparity in food access may lead to disparities in well-being, po...

🍃 This work was supported by a seed grant from the Andrew Sabin Family Center for Environment and Sustainability.

🔗 doi.org/10.1002/sim....

Combining Straight‐Line and Map‐Based Distances to Investigate the Connection Between Proximity to Healthy Foods and Disease Healthy foods are essential for a healthy life, but accessing healthy food can be more challenging for some people than others. This disparity in food access may lead to disparities in well-being, po...

🆕 New week, new pub! @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social (Assistant Prof) published in Statistics in Medicine with @wakeforest.bsky.social colleagues @ashleymullan.bsky.social (MS alum, now PhDing @vanderbilt.edu), @lucystats.bsky.social (Assistant Prof), and Staci Hepler (Vice Chair/Associate Prof).