Department of Statistics Newsletter Fall 2013 The University of Connecticut Table of Contents A Message from the Department Head 2 From the Director of the Graduate Program 5 From the Director of the Undergraduate Program 6 Selected Faculty Activities 7 From the Director of the Statistical Consulting Services (SCS) 18 Faculty Awards 20 The 50 th Anniversary Celebration of the Department of Statistics 21 The 23 rd Pfizer Colloquium 24 The 27 th New England Statistics Symposium 29 The 4 th International Workshop in Sequential Methodologies 35 ISBA Regional Meeting and IWCBTA 41 Colloquia 47 Faculty News 48 Alumni News 50 Student News 52 SAMSI Undergraduate Seminar 53 A Birthday Party at JSM 2013 55 Recent Ph.D.’s 56 Recent Masters 56 Recent Bachelors 56 Faculty, Staff and Adjunct Faculty 57 Alumni Reply Form 58 Website address: www.stat.uconn.edu e-mail: [email protected]; Phone: (860) 486-3414, Fax: (860) 486-4113 1 A Message from the Department Head Welcome to the sixteenth issue of our Department Newsletter . This has been an exciting year for the department on many fronts. On November 1-3, 2012, we celebrated the 50 th Anniversary of the Department. It was a great pleasure to welcome our colleagues, alumni and friends to join us to celebrate this special event. In particular, it was good to have with us Professor Robert Riffenburgh, the founder of the department and its first Department Head. Jointly with the 50 th Anniversary Celebration of the Department, we have held three important events. The first event being the 23 rd Pfizer Colloquium, co-sponsored by Pfizer, Inc and ASA. The colloquium lecture entitled: “A Pedestrian’s Lost Horizon in the Wiener Wald of Statistical Science,” was presented by Professor Pranab K. Sen, University of North Carolina, and was followed by a conversation with distinguished statisticians, Professors Malay Ghosh, University of Florida, and Dr. George W. Williams, Vice President, Biostatistics and Epidemiology, AMGEN, in memory of Professor Harry Posten. Both the colloquium lecture and the discussion have been filmed for the Archives of ASA. The second event has been the launching of Makuch Visiting Lecture Series in Biostatistics, sponsored by Professor Robert W. Makuch, Yale School of Public Health, Yale University. The inaugural lecture in this series, entitled: “Current Issues in Clinical Trials in Biostatistics,” has been delivered by Professor Robert W. Makuch. The third event in conjunction with our 50 th Anniversary Celebration has been the presentation of our Department’s Distinguished Alumnus Award to Professor E. Jacquelin Dietz, Meredith College. She presented a plenary lecture: “JSE, AP Statistics, and Randomization Tests in Stat 101 – 30 Years of Change in Statistics Education.” Congratulations, Jacquelin, on your academic achievements! Additional information and pictures from the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Department are included in this Newsletter. We have completed with great success our recruitment processes of three new faculty members. I would like to welcome Dr. Haim Bar and Dr. Kun Chen as Assistant Professors of Statistics, and Dr. Alexander Tartakovsky, as Professor of Statistics. Kun was an Assistant Professor at Kansas State University and Haim was a postdoc and a lecturer at Cornell University, where he received his Ph.D. degree in 2012. Alex was a Research Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Associate Director of the Center for Applied Mathematical Sciences at the University of Southern California. We would to thank our colleague, Dr. Tung-Lung Wu, who completed a one year Visiting Assistant Professor appointment in our department. Tung-Lung has accepted a postdoc position at Rutgers University. During his visit here, I had the pleasure of collaborating with him on two research articles. We all wish him success in his academic career. I am happy to let you know that Professor Ming-Hui Chen received the CLAS Excellence in Research Award and the AAUP Excellence in Research Award. Professor Ofer Harel has been Elected Member of International Statistical Institute. Professor Nitis Mukhopadhyay has been elected Fellow of American Association for Advancement of Science. Professor Nalini Ravishanker has been elected to Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering. Our lecturer, Kate McLaughlin, has received the Outstanding Faculty Award, presented by the 2 University of Connecticut Student Support Services. Congratulations to all recipients of these prestigious awards and honors! Congratulations to Megan Petsa, our Program Assistant, whose appointment became permanent on June 1, 2013. We all are happy to have you in the department. Our faculty research encompasses all major areas of statistics, including: Applied Probability, Bayesian Analysis, Bioinformatics and Genomics, Biostatistics, Financial statistics, Time Series Analysis and various aspects of Mathematical Statistics and Probability Theory. I am proud to mention that seven of our current faculty, one emeritus professor, are fellows of the ASA, seven of our current faculty and one emeritus faculty are fellows of the IMS, two of our faculty are fellows of AAAS and three of our current faculty are elected members of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences or Sciences and Engineering. Our faculty members continue to hold prestigious editorial and editorial board positions in major journals in probability and statistics. The research initiatives and the quality of output of the department continue to soar. We enjoy research funding from a variety of sources including NSF, NIH and private companies. International and national visibility of the department also continues to grow with our faculty’s participation and visits at conferences and other universities all over the world. We have also developed a strong interdisciplinary research program within UConn. Recently we have received high ranks in NRC as well as US News and World News. We have been fortunate continually to receive support from our alumni. We have recently received three major donations for the department through the CLAS Foundation Office. We have received a gift from the estate of Elizabeth Macfarlane, CLAS ’39, of about $400,000 to support graduate students who pursue a graduate degree in Biostatistics. We have also received from Professor Robert Makuch, CLAS ’72, who is currently a faculty member at the School of Public Health, Yale University, a generous gift of $25,000 to establish a distinguished lecture series in the field of Biostatistics. We also received a generous gift of $25,000 from Professor Matthew Goldstein, Ph.D. 1970, Chancellor Emeritus, CUNY, to establish a fund to support graduate education. Our alumnus, Chancellor Goldstein, has been having an illustrious academic career, culminating with a 14 year Chancellorship at CUNY, a university comprised of 24 colleges and professional schools with 490,000 students. To quote former President of Yale University and Chairman of Board of Trusties of CUNY, Benno Schmidt: “Chancellor Goldstein has led the unprecedented transformation of CUNY into the premiere integrated urban university in America. By all indications, CUNY’s outstanding reputation, rising enrollments, increased standards and enhanced resources should be attributed in large measure to his exemplary and courageous leadership.” Chancellor Goldstein received many prestigious awards: he is Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and recipient of the prestigious Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Academic Leadership Award. Congratulations Matt on your distinguished career in Science and Education! We are all proud to have you as our alumnus and are grateful for your continual support of the department. We wish you great success in all your future endeavors. These generous gifts to the department, from all our alumni, will strengthen our department’s research and graduate programs in Statistics and Biostatistics. I am grateful to Becky McEnery, 3 Linda Mullarkey and Maria Quiray Lawrence from CLAS Development Office for their support and guidance. I am grateful for the support our department has been receiving from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the University. The five new faculty positions that have been allocated to our department in the last two years will continue to strengthen research, undergraduate and graduate programs and enhance our department national and international standing. I am confident that the new Research Center for Jackson Labs, the Bioscience initiative at UCHC, as well as the possibility of establishing a School of Public Health, and the Next Generation STEM initiatives, will serve as an attraction for top applicants in statistics and biostatistics for our future faculty positions. The establishment of a Techno Park will also serve as an attraction for top applicants in Applied Statistics, as the new faculty members will have the opportunity to interact on research project with scientists at this new research facility. The faculty members in our department continue vigorously to develop and maintain collaborative research programs with colleagues from other departments and research centers within the university and scientists at other universities and research institutes in the US and abroad. Within the university, we maintain strong ties with Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Electrical Engineering, Finance, Geography, Mathematics, Molecular and Cell Biology, Nutrition, Pathobiology, Pharmacy,