Dr. Zhaohai Li Professor of Statistics at George Washington University, specializing in statistical methodologies for genetic epidemiology and clinical biostatistics. His research focuses on meta-analysis techniques, empirical Bayes methods, and population-based study designs. He has contributed extensively to improving statistical approaches in clinical trials and addressing challenges in genetic association studies. Education: Ph.D. in Statistics, Columbia University, 1989 Research Interests: His work addresses critical issues in modern biostatistics including: Population stratification in genetic studies Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium testing Optimal experimental design for case-control studies Handling missing data in genetic linkage analysis Development of robust statistical tests for complex survey data Publications Overview: Dr. Li's recent work emphasizes methodological advancements in: Bayesian approaches to population genetics Meta-analytic frameworks for combining study results Statistical solutions for multi-stage clinical trials Algorithmic improvements for genome-wide association analyses Professional Contributions: His articles consistently address practical challenges in biomedical research, bridging theoretical statistics with real-world genetic and clinical applications.
Professor Gareth Roberts is a Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Warwick. His research focuses on Computational Statistics, particularly MCMC methods, stochastic processes, Bayesian inference, statistical privacy, and applications in infectious disease modeling and sports analytics. He leads the OCEAN project with Eric Moulines, Michael Jordan, and Christian Robert, and teaches the ST923 lecture course on advanced statistical methods. His research interests include developing efficient sampling algorithms (e.g., MCMC, PDMP), statistical methodology for missing data, and privacy-preserving statistical techniques. Recent work emphasizes high-dimensional Bayesian models, quasi-stationary Monte Carlo, and scalability of computational methods. Publications span innovations in MCMC theory, applications to epidemiology, and sports probability modeling. His work on the Zig-Zag process and stereographic MCMC demonstrates contributions to PDMP-based sampling. Collaborations include interdisciplinary projects on bacterial transmission dynamics and statistical methods for big data. He actively participates in academic leadership, including organizing courses and contributing to the statistical community through projects like OCEAN. Contact: Gareth.O.Roberts@warwick.ac.uk .
Assoc Prof Xiang Liming is an Associate Professor in the Division of Mathematical Sciences at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, serving as Assistant Chair (Students). She holds editorial roles at *Computational Statistics & Data Analysis* and *Statistics in Medicine*. With a PhD in Statistics (City University of Hong Kong, 2002), her research focuses on survival analysis, longitudinal data analysis, and biostatistical methods. Notable contributions include methodologies for semi-competing risks, interval-censored data, and mixture models. Her work bridges statistical theory with biomedical applications, addressing challenges in clinical trials and public health. Awards include the 2009 IIE Transactions Best Paper Award and the Outstanding Research Thesis Award (2002–2003, CityU). Education: PhD in Statistics, City University of Hong Kong (2002) Postdoctoral Research: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2002–2003) and CityU (2003–2006) Research Interests: Survival analysis methodologies, including frailty models, cure models, and quantile regression for censored data. She develops robust statistical approaches for clustered/longitudinal data, addressing missingness and overdispersion. Applications span biomedical research, epidemiology, and quality management. Grants & Collaborations: Her grants include work on robotic-assisted stroke rehabilitation (2021) and LNG cold energy utilization systems (2017–2019). She collaborates with clinical teams on trials involving upper limb neurorehabilitation technologies. Labs & Teams: Leads statistical method development for multi-center clinical trials, particularly in biostatistics and survival analysis frameworks. Active in NTU’s School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences research initiatives.
Karen Bandeen-Roche is a Professor and the Hurley-Dorrier Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with joint affiliations in the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing. She is a leading expert in biostatistical methodology, particularly in latent variable models, longitudinal analysis, and multivariate survival methods applied to aging and gerontology. Her research focuses on developing statistical models for unobservable processes such as frailty, resilience, and functional status in older adults. She has made significant contributions to the measurement of aging-related constructs and has extensive collaborative work in ophthalmology and neurology. Her methodological work includes mixture models, measurement error correction, and latent class modeling. The recent publications highlight a strong trend in gerontological biostatistics, with a focus on frailty, dementia risk, resilience, and multisystem physiological responses in aging. Her work integrates complex data from observational cohorts and clinical studies, often employing innovative latent variable frameworks to address measurement challenges in health outcomes. Scientific Awards and Honors: Marvin Zelen Leadership Award in Statistical Science (2016) Fellow of the American Statistical Association (2001) Brookdale National Fellow (1997) Golden Apple Award for Excellence in Teaching (2010) Garland Clay Award (1999) Chair, NIH BMRD Study Section (2006–2008) President, Eastern North American Region, International Biometric Society (2011–2013) Executive Board, International Biometric Society (2015–2022) Board of Directors, National Institute of Statistical Sciences (2020–2023) Karen Bandeen-Roche has been deeply involved in advising and training the next generation of researchers. She co-directs a training program in Biostatistics and Epidemiology of Aging and has received multiple teaching and mentoring awards. She has served on numerous academic committees, including appointments and promotions, faculty senate, and ethics committees at Johns Hopkins. Her grants and collaborative research span aging, dementia, ophthalmology, and cardiovascular health, often supported by NIH and other federal agencies. She leads the Center on Aging and Health and is actively involved in interdisciplinary research initiatives that bridge biostatistics, medicine, and public health. Her lab and research team focus on developing and applying advanced statistical methods to understand the biological and social determinants of healthy aging.
Eva Cantoni is a Full Professor at the Research Center for Statistics within the Geneva School of Economics and Management , University of Geneva. Her expertise spans robust statistical methodology, model selection, and applications in ecology and medicine. Ph.D. from University of Geneva Accredited European Statistician (FENStatS) Research Interests : She specializes in Robust statistics for real-world data Variable/model selection in high-dimensional settings Nonparametric and semi-parametric regression Zero-inflated and overdispersed count models Longitudinal and spatiotemporal data analysis Her work addresses ecological challenges (fish stock assessment), medical applications (hospital congestion modeling), and housing market analysis. Recent Trends in Publications : Recent articles focus on Confidence intervals for robust mixed models Editorial leadership in robust statistics Applications to fisheries science and public health Flexible modeling frameworks for complex data Comparative studies of statistical measures Extremes modeling in healthcare Leadership & Grants : She has served as: Vice-Dean for Teaching (2020-2023) Director of Master's in Statistics (2012-2019) Director of Applied Statistics Certificate (2015-2019) President, Swiss Federal Statistics Committee (2024-2027) Specialty Chief Editor, Frontiers in Applied Mathematics (2024) Grants include projects on Robust solutions for modern data (2023-2025) Sustainable fisheries modeling (2018-2021) Advancements in state-space models (2014-2017) Software Contributions : Developed R packages for robust statistical methods: confintROB (bootstrap confidence intervals) RobSSM (robust state-space models) R2_LMM (explained variation measures)
Sivaraman Balakrishnan is a Professor at Carnegie Mellon University with joint appointments in the Department of Statistics and Data Science and the Machine Learning Department. His research bridges statistical machine learning, algorithmic statistics, and robust inference. Education: Ph.D. in Computer Science from Carnegie Mellon University (Language Technologies Institute, advised by Jaime Carbonell); postdoctoral work at UC Berkeley (Department of Statistics, advised by Martin Wainwright and Bin Yu). Research Interests: Spanning robust statistics, domain adaptation, minimax hypothesis testing, assumption-light inference, causal inference, statistical optimal transport, non-parametric statistics, ranking, crowdsourcing, optimization, and topological data analysis. Key Research Trends: Recent work focuses on domain adaptation under label/misingness shifts, robust gradient estimation, smooth optimal transport maps, and conditional independence testing. He explores minimax optimal methods, univariate mean estimation, and high-dimensional regression with missing data. Scientific Awards: IMS Lawrence D. Brown Student Award (2021, 2020) NVIDIA Pioneer Award (2018) Franklin V. Taylor Memorial Best Paper Award (2018) Grants and Editorial Roles: NSF grants (CCF-1763734, DMS-1713003, DMS-2113684, DMS-2310632), Amazon Research Award (2021), Google Research Scholar Award (2021). Associate Editor for JASA and JRSSB ; Editorial Board member for Foundations and Trends in Statistics . Collaborative Groups: Co-organizes the Statistics and Machine Learning Reading Group and participates in the Causal Inference Working Group at CMU.
Qi Long is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, holding joint appointments in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics (Perelman School of Medicine), Department of Computer and Information Science (School of Engineering and Applied Science), and Department of Statistics and Data Science (The Wharton School). He serves as Founding Director of the Center for Cancer Data Science, Associate Director of the Penn Institute for Biomedical Informatics, and Associate Director for Quantitative Data Science at the Abramson Cancer Center. His research bridges statistical and machine learning (ML/AI) method development with biomedical applications, focusing on precision medicine and population health. Education : Ph.D. (2005) and M.S. (2003) in Biostatistics from University of Michigan; B.S. (1998) in Computer Science from University of Science and Technology of China. Research interests include: Robust statistical and ML/AI methods for big health data (-omics, EHRs, imaging, mHealth) Multimodal data integration and subgroup heterogeneity analysis Missing data, causal inference, Bayesian methods, and clinical trials Data privacy, algorithmic fairness, and responsible AI in healthcare Foundation models and agentic AI for biomedicine His publications focus on privacy-preserving AI, fairness-aware ML, and integrative models for multi-omics and EHRs. Recent work explores LLMs and watermark detection in hybrid human-AI settings. Scientific Awards : Elected fellow: AAAS, ASA, IMS, ISI, AMIA He leads large NIH- and ARPA-H-funded initiatives, directing statistical coordinating centers for national clinical trials. His lab trains numerous PhD/Master’s students and postdocs, many of whom hold prestigious academic or industry positions.
Jaouad Mourtada is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at ENSAE/CREST, École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique since September 2020. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory for Computational and Statistical Learning at the University of Genoa (2019-2020). He completed his PhD in Statistics at École Polytechnique under the supervision of Stéphane Gaïffas and Erwan Scornet. His educational background includes a Master's degree in Mathematics with specialization in Probability and Random Models (2016), a Master's degree in Fundamental Mathematics (2015), and a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Pierre and Marie Curie University and École Normale Supérieure (2013). Dr. Mourtada's research focuses on the intersection of statistics and learning theory, with particular interest in high-dimensional statistics, online learning, and density estimation. His work explores the complexity of prediction and estimation problems through rigorous theoretical analysis. His research spans statistical learning theory, robust statistics, and the theoretical foundations of machine learning algorithms. His publication record since 2017 demonstrates consistent contributions to top-tier venues in statistics and machine learning, with recent work focusing on universal coding, aggregation methods, robust regression, and the theoretical analysis of kernel methods and random forests. His research shows a progression from online learning and expert aggregation to more complex statistical learning problems involving high-dimensional data and model misspecification. He teaches courses including Statistical Learning Theory for Master 2 Data Science students and Probability Theory at ENSAE. His teaching spans theoretical foundations of machine learning and core probability concepts for advanced statistics students.
Bin Nan serves as Chancellor's Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Irvine, where he develops statistical and machine learning methodologies to advance biomedical research and improve human health outcomes through rigorous data analysis. His educational credentials demonstrate a strong quantitative foundation: Ph.D. in Biostatistics, University of Washington (2001) M.S. in Biostatistics, University of Washington (1999) M.S. in Statistics, Virginia Commonwealth University (1997) M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics (1987) B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Beijing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics (1984) Nan's research program focuses on developing cutting-edge statistical methods for survival analysis, longitudinal data, high-dimensional inference, and machine learning, with direct applications to epidemiology, bioinformatics, and brain imaging. His work addresses critical challenges in biomedical data such as temporal dependence in neuroimaging sequences, estimation of large correlation matrices, and analysis of disease onset with terminal events, all aimed at identifying biomarkers for earlier disease diagnosis. Analysis of his recent publications (2015-2023) reveals a consistent trajectory toward methodological innovation in handling complex biomedical data structures, particularly through de-biased lasso techniques for survival models, neural network applications to censored data, and specialized approaches for longitudinal data with terminal events. These advances predominantly support Alzheimer's disease research and transplant outcome studies. No specific scientific awards were documented in the source material. His research program maintains continuous funding through National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health grants, including a recent $1.8 million award for Alzheimer's disease methodology development. Nan actively collaborates with the UCI Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and UCI Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, though student advising details were not provided. His teaching portfolio includes advanced graduate courses in probability theory, survival analysis, and high-dimensional inference. Nan operates within interdisciplinary biomedical research teams focused on translating statistical innovation into clinical applications, particularly through brain imaging analysis and biomarker identification for neurodegenerative diseases.
Ben Raphael is a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Princeton University, with affiliations at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute, and Center for Statistics and Machine Learning. He is also an Affiliate Faculty member at the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, Irving Institute for Cancer Dynamics at Columbia University, and New York Genome Center. His research focuses on computational methods for analyzing large-scale biological data, emphasizing cancer evolution, network/pathway analysis, and structural variation in genomes. Research Trends: His recent work spans cancer lineage trees, spatial transcriptomics, optimal transport for developmental models, and network analysis of mutations. Articles highlight applications in prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, and single-cell genomics. Scientific Awards: 2024 ACM Fellow 2023 RECOMB Test of Time Award 2022 RECOMB Test of Time Runner-Up 2021 ISCB Innovator Award 2021 RECOMB Best Paper Runner-Up 2020 ISCB Fellow 2020 AACR Team Science Award 2011 NSF CAREER Award 2013 RECOMB Best Paper 2010-2012 Sloan Research Fellowship Advising: He has mentored numerous Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows, many of whom have transitioned to academic and industry roles. Current advisees include Uthsav Chitra, Gillian Chu, and Alexander Strzalkowski. Labs & Teams: Raphael leads the Raphael Lab at Princeton, developing tools like HotNet2, CHISEL, and HATCHet for cancer genomics and network analysis.
Sriraam Natarajan is a Professor and Director of the Center for Machine Learning and StaRLing Lab at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD), part of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering & Computer Science. He holds additional roles as a hessian.AI Fellow at TU Darmstadt and an RBCDSAI Distinguished Faculty Fellow at IIT Madras. His expertise spans Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and their applications in healthcare, with a focus on Relational Learning, Reinforcement Learning, and Graphical Models. He has been honored as an AAAI Fellow (2025), elected to the AAAI Executive Council, and recognized with the UTD Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award. Education: Completed his PhD in Computer Science at Oregon State University in 2007 under Prof. Prasad Tadepalli. Postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Professors Jude Shavlik and David Page. Previously served as faculty at Indiana University and Wake Forest School of Medicine. Research: Active in developing AI systems for healthcare, including predictive models for gestational diabetes and cardiac arrest in children. His work emphasizes integrating human knowledge into machine learning (e.g., Human-in-the-Loop systems) and advancing statistical relational AI frameworks like Markov Logic Networks and Probabilistic Circuits. Publications: Over 100 peer-reviewed articles, including notable works on causal learning, relational reinforcement learning, and knowledge graph construction. Recent focuses include explainable AI and scalable probabilistic models. Awards: AAAI Fellow, RBCDSAI Distinguished Fellowship, UTD Teaching Excellence Award. Advising and Collaboration: Mentored over 30 students, many now in academia and top institutions like IBM Research, Facebook, and Microsoft. Collaborates globally on projects like GLAD (Glocalized Anomaly Detection) and StaRLing Lab initiatives. Labs/Teams: Leads the StaRLing Lab, focusing on statistical relational AI, and directs UTD's Center for Machine Learning. Engaged in interdisciplinary projects with healthcare, robotics, and data science communities.
Monica Pratesi is a Full Professor of Statistics at the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Pisa. She currently serves on leave as Director of the Department for Statistical Production at ISTAT, coordinating 937 researchers and managers. Her expertise spans small area estimation, poverty measurement, survey methodology, and official statistics. She leads the Tuscan Universities Research Centre “Camilo Dagum” and has held two Jean Monnet Chairs focusing on poverty and living conditions in the EU. She has coordinated major EU projects like INGRID-2 and MAKSWELL, advancing methodologies for inclusive growth and sustainable development. Her research integrates big data and citizen-generated data into statistical frameworks. Awards include presidencies of the Italian Statistical Society and the International Association of Survey Statisticians. Education & Roles: Full Professor of Statistics (SECS-S/01) at University of Pisa since 2012 Director, Department for Statistical Production at ISTAT (until 2024) President, Italian Statistical Society (2016-2020) President-elect, International Association of Survey Statisticians (2022-2023) Research Focus: Advanced statistical methods for poverty monitoring, small area estimation, survey design, and leveraging big data for policy impact. Key areas include multidimensional poverty, educational poverty, and sustainable development indicators. Her work emphasizes real-time data integration and policy relevance. Grants & Projects: Principal Investigator for INGRID-2 (EU H2020, 2017-2021) Principal Investigator for MAKSWELL (EU H2020, 2017-2020) Coordinator of SAMPLE (FP7) and INGRID (FP7) Labs & Teams: Active in the Societal Transitions group and contributes to the European Master in Official Statistics program. Her research center, REMARC, focuses on policy-driven statistical innovation.
Sara Wade is a Lecturer in Statistics and Machine Learning at the University of Edinburgh , within the School of Mathematics . Her research focuses on Bayesian statistics, machine learning, and their applications in health sciences, particularly in dementia diagnosis and predictive modeling. She holds a PhD from the University of Milan and has held academic positions at the University of Cambridge and University of Warwick before joining Edinburgh. She teaches a popular Machine Learning and Python course for Master’s and final-year undergraduate students, attracting nearly 200 enrollments annually. Her work integrates Bayesian methods with modern machine learning, emphasizing interdisciplinary applications such as scalar-on-image regression and biomarker analysis. Notable contributions include developing hierarchical Dirichlet processes for clustering and uncertainty quantification in RNA velocity studies. She secured a Royal Society of Edinburgh grant for her dementia research project, which aims to improve early diagnosis through statistical modeling. Education: PhD in Statistics, University of Milan Bachelor’s in Mathematics, University of Maryland Wade advocates for diversity in STEM, actively participating in the Women in Machine Learning community. Her research bridges statistical rigor and computational tools, fostering collaborations across academia and healthcare sectors.
Prof. Gerhard Jäger holds the Chair of General Linguistics at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Tübingen . He serves as a Principal Investigator (PI) in the Clusters of Excellence Human Origins and Machine Learning for Science , and leads projects like Phylomilia (funded by Volkswagen Foundation) and CrossLingference (ERC Advanced Grant). His career spans multiple institutions, including Bielefeld University (2004-2009) and Stanford University (visiting scholar, 2004). Habilitation (2002) at Humboldt University Berlin with thesis on Anaphora and Type Logical Grammar PhD (1996) at Humboldt University Berlin on Dynamic Semantics His research bridges computational linguistics , phylogenetic analysis , and game theory , focusing on Bayesian models , language evolution , and cross-linguistic typology . Recent work explores phylogenetic inference from acoustic speech data and geographic influences on language trees . Key contributions include 15+ recent publications on topics spanning phylogenetic typology , cognate detection , and Bayesian language modeling . These works employ machine learning , statistical inference , and evolutionary game theory to analyze language change , typological variation , and linguistic stability . Honors include ERC Advanced Grant , Volkswagen Foundation funding , and DFG-Humanities Centre for Advanced Studies participation. He has taught courses in Computational Historical Linguistics , Phylogenetic Methods , and Bayesian Data Analysis across institutions like Tübingen, Bielefeld, and Stanford. He actively contributes to academic communities through workshop organization (e.g., Quantitative Theoretical Linguistics , Game Theory in Pragmatics ) and serves on the faculty council at Tübingen. His team collaborates with institutions like Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology , University of Pennsylvania , and LMU Munich .
Kyle Chapman serves as Associate Professor and Department Chair of Humanities and Social Sciences at Oregon Institute of Technology, where he has strengthened the Population Health Management program since joining in 2016. His work bridges sociological theory with practical healthcare applications through teaching and community-engaged research. His educational background includes a Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology with specializations in Medical Sociology and Gerontology from the University of Kansas (2016), a Master of Arts in Sociology from Texas Tech University (2011), and dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Sociology and Mass Communication from Texas Tech University (2008). Dr. Chapman's research investigates social determinants of health with emphasis on aging, chronic disease, and health disparities. His work examines how socioeconomic factors shape physical and mental health outcomes across community and population levels, particularly focusing on rural healthcare challenges in Oregon. Recent projects analyze wildfire smoke impacts on hospital capacity, mental health among first responders, and barriers to healthcare access for vulnerable populations. His publication record reveals a consistent trajectory from foundational sociological studies toward applied public health research, with increasing focus on environmental health crises since 2020. The 2023-2025 articles demonstrate sophisticated integration of case-crossover methodologies with state health data to address Oregon's unique wildfire-related health challenges, while maintaining core interests in health behaviors and chronic disease management. As an educator, Dr. Chapman teaches medical sociology, research methods, and social inequality courses. His curriculum development work, including the 'Integrated Sociology Programs' framework, reflects commitment to preparing students for health sector careers through the Population Health Management program. Outside academic duties, he explores Pacific Northwest natural attractions with his family.