Department of Statistics

Newsletter

Summer 2009

The University of ConnecticutA glimpse of the past...

-2-

In This Issue:

A Message from the Department Head 3From the Director of Graduate Studies 5From the Director of Undergraduate Program 6Selected Faculty Activities 7News from the Statistical Consulting Service (SCS) 16Pfizer Colloquium Series 17New England Statistics Symposium 182 International Workshop in Sequential Methodologies 22nd

and Wald Price in Sequential AnalysisDepartment Awards Day 24Faculty News 25Colloquia 25Alumni News 26Student News 27Student Achievement Awards 28Recent Ph.D.’s and their Affiliations 28Recent Masters 29Recent Bachelors 29Faculty, Staff and Adjunct Faculty 29Alumni Reply Form 31

Website address: http://www.stat.uconn.edue-mail: cathy.brown@uconn.edu; Phone: (860) 486-3414, Fax: (860) 486-4113

-3-

A Message from the Department Head

Welcome to the twelfth issue of our “Newsletter”.There have been many exciting developments happenedduring the past year.

I am extremely happy to mention that ProfessorJoseph Glaz has become a Fellow of the Institute ofMathematical Statistics (IMS). Professor NitisMukhopadhyay received the 2008 Abraham Wald Prizein Sequential Analysis and I have become an electedmember of the Connecticut Academy of Arts andSciences during March 2009.

I am also happy to inform you that Professor Yazhen Wang has completed his final year asa Program Director of the National Science Foundation in the Division of Mathematical Sciences.Professors Wang and Ravishanker were recognized by the University respectively for their 10 yearsand 20 years of outstanding service.

I am happy to report that Dr. Juan Vivar completed his one year Postdoctoral Fellowship andDr. Victor H. Lachos will be visiting us from Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil.

The research initiatives and the quality of output of the department continue to soar. We enjoyresearch funding from a variety of sources including NSF, NIH, ONR and private companies.Several research proposals are currently under review for extramural funding. International andnational visibility of the department also continues to grow with our faculty’s participation and visitsat conferences and other universities all over the world.

A 32 node dual quad-core computing cluster has been purchased and installed under thesupport of an NSF SCREMS grant and matching funds from UConn. The cluster is now beingintensively used by faculty and students of the Department for research. The Department of Physicshas provided critical support to the maintenance and management of the cluster. 21 new GX280sPC workstations are now installed in the computer lab of the Department, which significantlyupgrades the capacities of the computer lab.

The faculty members continue to develop and maintain significant collaborative researchprograms with colleagues from other departments, universities, and organizations. Within UConn,we maintain strong ties with Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Ecology and EvolutionaryBiology, Finance, Geography, Mathematics, Molecular and Cell Biology, Nutrition, Pathobiology,Pharmacy, Plant Science, Psychiatry and Natural Resources Management. We are committed tostrengthening our interdisciplinary research component. Faculty members and graduate students fromEcology and Evolutionary Biology, Computer Science and from Statistics meet regularly to furthercollaborative research on Statistical Genetics. Faculty from Genetics and Developmental Biology

-4-

at UCHC, Computer Science, and Statistics meet periodically for collaborative research inBioinformatics. Some faculty members are also involved with various interdisciplinary programswithin the university, including the Center for Public Health and Health Policy, the Center for HealthCommunication and Marketing, the Center for Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Center forNursing Research (CNR) and the Center for Health/HIV Intervention and Prevention. OutsideUConn, we collaborate with research groups at the American University, Florida State University,SAMSI, University of Binghampton, University of Chicago, Harvard Medical School, JohnsHopkins University, Michigan State University, University of Minnesota, Oregon State University,Penn State University, Princeton University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,University of Pennsylvania, Medical University of South Carolina, University of New Orleans, M.D.Anderson Cancer Research Center, University of Washington and various intramural groups withinNIH. At the international level, we are collaborating with faculty members from the FederalUniversity of Rio di Janeiro, Haifa University, Israel, Federal University of Minas Gerais andUniversity of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Haifa University, Israel, London School of Economics, U.K.,Myongji University, South Korea, National University of Singapore, Singapore and RMITUniversity, Melbourne, Australia. The UConn Health Center has continued to support our studentsboth from joint research grants as well as from internship programs. We thank Dr. Martin Cherniackat the Health Center and Rob Aseltine from the Institute of Public Health Research for theircontinued support during the past year. We are developing more projects through the StatisticalConsulting Service (SCS). Professor Ming-Hui Chen has just become the new Director of the SCS.Currently we are running our internship program through the SCS. The list of clients is quiteimpressive and continues to grow. Recently, we developed a joint research exchange program withBrazilian Universities. As a part of the program, currently two students are working on theirdissertation topics in our department.

We continue the scholarship program with St. Paul’s Travelers Insurance to support one ofour graduate students. I thank Keith Holler, our former Ph.D., who was a liaison from St. Paul’sTravelers to initiate the program.

The Pfizer Global Research & Development Student Fellowship Program has been extendedto another year. In November 2008, the Department and the Global Research & Development ofPfizer Inc. signed a joint agreement of the continuation of this Fellowship program. Under thisagreement, one of our graduate students will work at Pfizer 10 hours each week during the spring2009 semester, and 20 hours each week in the summer, and 10 hours each week in fall 2009semester.

On the instructional side, the enrolment in our service courses continues to climb, reflectingsubstantially increased demand for statistical expertise in a multitude of disciplines. The graduatelevel seminar courses in survival analysis, statistical consulting, Bioinformatics, longitudinal dataanalysis and clinical trials were also well received. The number and quality of majors in Statisticsand Mathematics/Statistics continue to grow. We are working with ACES and other groups towardsstrengthening our undergraduate major. The Field Study Internship and Undergraduate Researchinitiatives will aid in our effort. We have established a Minor in Statistics, which attracts studentsfrom other disciplines, and we continue to foster our High School Coop program to attract studentsinto majors and minors in Statistics.

-5-

On April 25, 2009 the department hosted the 23 New England Statistics Symposium. Aboutrd

one hundred and seventy researchers and students in probability and statistics from academicinstitutions and industry in New England attended this event. Plenary lectures were presented byProfessors James O. Berger of Duke University and Statistical and Applied Mathematical SciencesInstitute and Richard A. Davis of the Department of Statistics at Columbia University. Preceedingthe NESS, Professor Sudipto Banerjee of the University of Minnesota, our alumni gave a shortcourse on “Hierarchical modeling for spatially-referenced data with applications to environmentalsciences and public health”. His course attracted more than 50 students. On April 24, we held ourfirst National Institute of Statistical Science (NISS) affiliates meeting, which was attended by morethan 20 affiliates. The entire meeting was a great success.

The Joint UConn-UMass colloquia have been held every semester for a number of years. InFall 2008, our own Nalini Ravishanker presented a seminar at UMass. During the Spring 2009semester, we hosted the seminar and our invited colloquium speaker was Daeyoung Kim fromUMass.

I am very proud of our accomplishments and would like to thank our faculty, staff, alumniand professional friends for their commitment to the department.

- Dipak K. Dey (Phone: (860) 486-4196, e-mail: dipak.dey@uconn.edu

From the Director of Graduate Studies

The graduate programs offered by our department continueto be of high quality. We have to thank Professor Lynn Kuo for thegreat job she has done throughout the years as the director of ourgraduate programs.

We offer a broad spectrum of modern courses in statistics andprobability, including statistical computing and consulting. In theadvanced seminar courses the students are exposed to excitingcurrent areas of research. Through the Statistical Consulting

Services the students have the opportunity to be engaged in research in many areas of science andtechnology and provide support to the research community of the university. We have an extensivecollaboration with faculty members in medical and health sciences. Our graduate students have theopportunity to be employed as research assistants on many of their funded research projects.

Last year the incoming class consisted of eighteen students, nine of them supported by thedepartment from variety of sources. About fifty graduate students were enrolled in our MS and Ph.D.

http://keynote.htmhttp://keynote.htmmailto:dey@stat.uconn.edu

-6-

programs, out of which thirty three were supported by a teaching or research assistantship.

This year 189 students have applied for admission to our graduate programs. I would liketo take this opportunity and thank the members of the graduate admission committee: ProfessorsZhiyi Chi, Nitis Mukhopadhyay, Nalini Ravishanker, Rick Vitale and Jun Yan, for their hard workin reviewing the applications. Thanks are also due to our administrative staff: Cathy Brown andTracy Burke, for their work throughout the entire application and admission process. This Fall 2009semester, our incoming class will include 20 new students, 14 in the MS program and 6 in the Ph.D.program.

The employment prospects for graduating students with an MS or a Ph. D. degree in statisticsremain strong, even during current hard economic times. All our graduate students have receivedoffers for good positions or were accepted in prestigious graduate programs, continuing theireducation towards a Ph. D. degree. This year 10 students received an MS degree and 7 students a Ph.D degree. The prestigious positions our Ph. D.s’ have accepted include: Abbots Laboratory, USBureau of Census, IBM TJ Watson Research Center, National Institute for Statistical Sciences, andYale University. Congratulations to all our graduates! We wish them success in their new positions.

An updated Graduate Brochure, providing information about the department, our graduateprograms and application forms along with instructions, will be available on the department websitewww.stat.uconn.edu/ .

- Joseph Glaz, e-mail address: joseph.glaz@uconn.edu

From the Director of UndergraduateProgram

There are currently over 40 majors in Statistics and

Mathematics-Statistics. Our majors continue to take advantage ofofferings such as Field Study Internship, Undergraduate Research, andUndergraduate Seminar I and II to serve the Writing in the Majorcomponent. Many of our majors continue to go to graduate school,either at UConn or elsewhere. We adopted a new course numberingsystem effective Fall 2008. The assessment plan developed by thedepartment for our majors has already been implemented for threesemesters. Our department also continues to be active in the UConnEarly College Experience (ECE) Program involving over 25 highschools in CT.

- Nalini Ravishanker (Phone: (860)486-4760; e-mail: nalini.ravishanker@uconn.edu)

http://http://mailto:joseph.glaz@uconn.edumailto:nalini@stat.uconn.edu

-7-

Selected Faculty Activities

Editorial Boards

Ming-Hui Chen is Associate Editor ofLifetime Data Analysis, Co-Editor ofSankhya, Associate Editor of BayesianAnalysis Associate Editor of Journal ofComputational and Graphical Statistics, andAssociate Editor of Statistics and Its Interface.He is also the Co-Guest Editor (2009-2010) ofLifetime Data Analysis for a special issue onBayesian Methods for Survival Data.

Zhiyi Chi is an Associate Editor of AppliedStochastic Models in Business and Industry.

Joseph Glaz is Editor-in-chief ofMethodology and Computing in AppliedProbability. He is also Associate Editor ofSequential Analysis. He has been invited toserve as Editor-in-chief of a Handbook inApplied Probability, to be published bySpringer.

Ofer Harel is on the Editorial Board of TheOpen Medical Informatics Journal.

Nitis Mukhopadhyay is the Editor ofSequential Analysis (2004). He is also anAssociate Editor of the Communications inStatistics, Statistical Methodology and theCalcutta Statistical Association Bulletin. Heis Chair of the national committee for filmingof distinguished statisticians for the archive ofthe American Statistical Association (ASA)and directs the project funded jointly by PfizerGlobal Research-ASA-UConn.

Nalini Ravishanker is Editor, Theory andMethods for the Applied Stochastic Models in

Business and Industry (ASMBI), AssociateEditor of the Journal of Forecasting and theInternational Journal of Statistics andSystems. She is a Fellow of the AmericanStatistical Association.

Rick Vitale completed his Editorship of theLecture Notes and Monograph Series of theInstitute of Mathematical Statistics. He isserving on the Editorial Boards of Advancesin Applied Probability and Methodology andComputing in Applied Probability.

Yazhen Wang serves as associate editors forJournal of the American StatisticalAssociation, Statistica Sinica, Journal ofKorean Statistical Society, and TheEconometrics Journal.

Selected Invited

Faculty Talks

Ming-Hui Chen was the invited speakers ina SBSS Topic Contributed Session on “RecentDevelopment of Bayesian Methods forMissing Data” at the 2008 JSM, Denver,Colorado, August 3 - 7, 2008; Department ofStatistics, University of Missouri-Columbia,April 1, 2009; Department of Biostatistics,School of Public Health, University ofMedicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, May22, 2009; and an invited session on “EmergingIssues in Missing Data Analysis”, at the ICSA2009 Applied Statistics Symposium, SFOWestin Hotel, Millbrae, California, June21-24, 2009. He also delivered an invitedspeech on “Preparation and Survival Tips for

-8-

Academic Career” in the ICSA and ASA SFBay Area Joint Career Evening at the ICSA2009 Applied Statistics Symposium, SFOWestin Hotel, Millbrae, California, June 22,2009.

Zhiyi Chi was invited to give lectures atColumbia University, Johns HopkinsUniversity, University of Massachusetts atAmherst. He also organized and chairedsessions in IWAP 06 and ICSA 06Conference.

Dipak K. Dey presented invited talks at theUniversity of Rochester Medical School,Rochester, NY, January, 2009, Department ofStatistics, George Washington University,Washington, D.C., April, 2009. and at theSeventh workshop on Nonparametric Bayes atMoncalieri, Italy, June, 2009. He also gave ashort course on “Bayesian methods forclustering classification and categorical data”at the Italian Summer School in Bressanone,Italy on June 2009.

Joseph Glaz presented an invited lecture atthe 2009 Quality and Productivity ResearchConference, IBM T.J. Watson ResearchCenter, Yorktown Heights, NY, June 2009.He also presented an invited lecture at theInternational Workshop on SequentialMethodologies 2009, TechnologicalUniversity of Troyes, Troyes, France, June2009. He also presented an invited colloquiumlecture at Haifa University, March 2009.

Ofer Harel presented invited talks atNIH/NICHD in March 2009 and theUniversity of Pennsylvania in April 2009.

Lynn Kuo has given an invited talk at thetopic contributed session at the JSM 2008.

As a Program Committee Member for theInternational Workshop in Applied Probability(IWAP) held in Compiegne, France, duringJuly 7-10, 2008, Nitis Mukhopadhyay

organized two invited paper sessions on theinterface of sequential methodologies andapplied probability, chaired a session, andpresented an invited paper. He was invited topresent a paper AAn Introduction to a NewMethodology of Random SequentialProbability Ratio Test with Data Analysis@ inthe 2009 Quality and Productivity ResearchConference at IBM T. J. Watson ResearchCenter, Yorktown Heights, New York, June 3-5, 2009. He was one of the four co-organizersand a Program Committee Member for theSecond International Workshop in SequentialMethodologies (IWSM) that was held inTroyes, France during July 13-15, 2009. Heorganized three invited paper sessions on theSequential Inference and Methodologies-I, II,and III, chaired a number of plenary andinvited paper sessions as well as specialevents, and presented an invited paper at thisIWSM2009. He has been invited to present apaper at the Seventh Calcutta TriennialStatistics Symposium, University of Calcutta,Kolkata, India, December 28-31, 2009, forwhich he has been serving as a Vice-Chairman.

Vladimir Pozdnyakov presented a talkentitled “Martingale Methods for Patterns andScan Statistics” at the International IndianStatistical Association (IISA) Conference,May 2008, University of Connecticut, Storrs,CT. He presented another talk entitled “OnRobust Nonparametric Repeated SignificanceTests for Heavy-tailed Distributions” at theFirst International Workshop in SequentialMethodologies (IWSM2007), July 2007,Auburn University, Auburn, AL.

Nalini Ravishanker presented an invited talkat the Joint Statistical Meetings in Denver inAugust 2008, at Boston University and theUniversity of Massachusetts at Amherst inFall 2008.

Rick Vitale presented a talk at the program onRandom Fields and Stochastic Geometry (Feb

-9-

22-27, 2009) at the Banff InternationalResearch Station for Mathematical Innovationand Discovery. He presented a short courseentitled “Geometry and Probability” at theUniversity of Milan, June 15-19, 2009. Healso gave a main lecture on at the 10thEuropean Congress of Stereology and ImageAnalysis (Milan, June 22-26, 2009).

Yazhen Wang presented eight invited talksat Conferences and Workshops and seventalks at departmental colloquia.

Jun Yan taught a short course on“Introduction to Copula-Based MultivariateStatistical Modeling”from May, 21 to June 6,2008, in the School of Statistics, RenminUniversity of China, Beijing, China. He alsopresented a talk on June 22, 2008, at theInternational Statistics Forum 2008, RenminUniversity of China, Beijing China.

Grants

Ming-Hui Chen is the P.I. on the subcontractof an NIH R01 grant for 2006-2010, and anNIH R01 grant for 2005-2009, He is theCo-P.I. on an NSF grant on “ScientificComputing Research Environments for theMathematical Sciences (SCREMS)” for2007-2009. He serves as a statisticalconsultant in the field of trial design/dataanalysis using Bayesian Approach related todrug-eluting stents for Boston ScientificCorporation, Marlborough, MA for2006-2010.

Zhiyi Chi is continuing to be a co-PI of anNIH R01 grant "Characterization of non-linearauditory receptive fields", the PI of an NSF grant "Controlling positive false discovery rate withpower".

Dipak K. Dey has completed his NationalInstitute of Health, (with K. Holsinger,Department of EEB) on “BayesianApproaches for Analyzing Genetic Diversity”.

Joseph Glaz is a co-principal investigator ona major grant form NIH.

Ofer Harel is a Co-PI on “MultilevelAlcohol-HIV/AIDS Prevention in SouthAfrica” grant supported by the NationalInstitute of Health, and Co-PI on “ScientificComputing Research Environments for theMathematical Sciences (SCREMS)”,supported by the National ScienceFoundation. He is also a Biostatistician on“Detection of intimate partner violence:Implications for interventions” grant from theHealth Services Research and Development,Department of Veteran Affairs; “Effectivenessof an IMB-based intervention for ReducingSweetened Beverage Consumption inPreschool Children” grant from the UnitedStates Department of Agriculture;“Characteristics of Effective Job Health andSafety Committees” and “Aging,Musculoskeletal Disorders and WorkCapacity” grants from the National Institute ofHealth. Lynn Kuo is a co-PI on project 3: Microarrayand Genetic Networks of the grant DirectinghES Derived Progenitors Cells intoMusculoskeletal Lineages, 2007-2010 (DavidRowe-Principal Investigator, supported byConnecticut Stem Cell Initiative). She is alsoa co-PI of a Faculty Large Grant: Phosphoflowand Bayesian Network Analysis of CTLActivation (Adam Zweifach-PrincipalInvestigator).

Cyr M’lan received a Large Faculty Grantfrom Uconn Research Foundation for hisproject on "Estimating Global and Gene-Specific Parameters in an UnbalancedMultifactorial ANOVA model for Microarray

-10-

Data".

Nitis Mukhopadhyay received UCRF-AAUPtravel grants to partially fund his participationat the International Workshop in AppliedProbability (IWAP) held in Compiegne,France, during July 7-10, 2008 and the JointStatistical Meetings, August 3-7, 2008 inDenver, Colorado. He raised funds fromTaylor & Francis Publishing (Philadelphia) topartially support the trips of Joe Glaz,Debanjan Bhattacharjee, and his own to theSecond International Workshop in SequentialMethodologies (IWSM) that was held inTroyes, France during July 13-15, 2009. Hedirects the project funded by Pfizer GlobalResearch-ASA-UConn for filming ofdistinguished statisticians for the archive ofthe ASA.

Vladimir Pozdnyakov received an IMS travelaward to attend the IMS New ResearchersConference 2003.

Nalini Ravishanker served on the ProgramCommittee of the Quality and ProductivityResearch Conference 2009. She continues toserve as faculty coordinator for Statistics inthe UConn Early College Experience program,interacting with over 25 high schools in CToffering STAT1100. She ran the annualworkshop for participating high schoolteachers in May 2009. She also serves in theAdvisory Committee to the ECE program.

Yazhen Wang works at NSF as StatisticsProgram Director.

Jun Yan was awarded by NSF a 3-yearproject (07/2008 - 06/2011), $150,000, on“Unified Dynamic Modeling of Event TimeData with Semiparametric Profile EstimatingFunctions: Theory, Computing, andApplications”.

OUTrEaCH

Ming-Hui Chen is the Executive Director ofthe International Chinese StatisticalAssociation for 2007-2010. He isPublications Officer, Section On BayesianStatistical Sciences (SBSS), AmericanStatistical Association, Elected in 2007,Serving for 2008-2009. He was a member ofthe Board of Directors, International ChineseStatistical Association (Elected in 2003,Serving for 2004-2006). He is an AdjunctFaculty in the Jiann-Ping Hsu College ofPublic Health at Georgia SouthernUniversity (2007 --- Present, http://jphcoph.georgiasouthern.edu/Faculty.php#AFDir). Heis an active Biostatistics reviewer for theJournal of Clinical Oncology. He is also aninvited author of Sanofi-Aventis U.S for apublication tentatively entitled “AMeta-analysis of Gender Differences in theTreatment of Allergic Rhinitis With AqueousTriamcinolone Acetate”. He was elected toFellow of the Institute of MathematicalStatistics in 2007 and Fellow of AmericanStatistical Association in 2005. He is anelected member of the International StatisticalInstitute and a member of the Institute ofMathematical Statistics, American StatisticalAssociation, The International BiometricSociety (ENAR), the International Society forBayesian Analysis, Section on BayesianStatistics, International Chinese StatisticiansAssociation, and The Society of The SigmaXi.

Dipak K. Dey is a member of the LindleyPrize Committee under the InternationalSociety for Bayesian Analysis and studenttravel award committee member of the SBSS,ASA. He was a program coordinator, SAMSIprogram on Risk Analysis, Extreme Eventsand Decision Theory, 2007. He is continuingas a Member, Fellow Selection Committee,Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2007-2009, Member, Synergy Committee for the

http://jphcoph.georgiasouthern.edu/Faculty.php#AFDir).http://jphcoph.georgiasouthern.edu/Faculty.php#AFDir).

-11-

School of Public Health between UConn andUConn Health Science Center, 2003-,Member, Biostatistics Task Force Committee,Center for Public Health and Health Policy.Recently he has become the Director ofDesign, Biostatistics, and Clinical ResearchEthics of the Connecticut Institute for Clinicaland Translational Research. He is the Chairof the Executive committee for theconference, entitled “Frontier of StatisticalDecision Making and Bayesian Analysis”, inhonor of James O. Berger at San Antonio,Texas during March, 2010. He organized asession at the JSM, Denver, Colorado, on “Modeling Extreme Events and Risk Analysis”.He evaluated grant proposals form NationalResearch Council of Canada, ResearchFoundation of Chile and Research GrantCouncil of Hongkong. He served as anexternal committee member of Ph.D.committees from Banaras Hindu University,India and University of British Columbia,Canada. He evaluated the Statistics Program atthe University of Vermont. He reviewedcandidates for Promotion and Tenure from theUniversity of Michigan, the Oregon Healthand Science University, Baruch College,CUNY, Texas A&M University andPontificea Universidad Catolica de Chile. Hewas elected Member of the ConnecticutAcademy of Arts and Sciences 2009. Recentlyhe was selected to serve as the COPSSPresident’s Award Committee.

Joseph Glaz served as a reviewer forMathematical Reviews. He served as memberof Scientific Program Committee of ASMDA,XIII International Symposium on AppliedStochastic Models and Data Analysis, Vilnius,Lithuania, July 2009. He also served on theAdvisory panel of Second InternationalWorkshop in Sequential Methodologies -IWSM 2009. He organized an invited sessionat the 2009 Quality and Productivity ResearchConference, IBM T.J. Watson ResearchCenter, Yorktown Heights, NY, June 2009.

He is also co-chair of the InternationalWorkshop in Applied Probability, IWAP2010, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid,Madrid, Spain, June 2010. He has also beenelected Fellow of the Institute ofMathematical Statistics.

Ofer Harel is a member of the Center ofApplied Statistics, Department of Statistics,University of Connecticut; Biostatisticsprogram development committee, Departmentof Statistics, University of Connecticut;Planning/Advisory Committee: Design,Biostatistics, & Clinical Research Ethics inclinical and translational research (CTSA),University of Connecticut; Scientific AdvisoryCommittee (SAC) member of the EthelDonaghue Center for Translating Researchinto Practice and Policy (TRIPP Center),University of Connecticut; Member of thescientific organizing committee for theInternational Conference for Health PolicyStatistics (ICHPS), 2010. He was also electedas the Vice President of the ConnecticutChapter of ASA.

Lynn Kuo visited Statistical and AppliedMathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) inthe spring semester as a research fellow. Shealso presented a poster at the AlgebraicMethods in System Biology and Statisticsworkshop at SAMSI. She is the Treasurer ofthe International Statistical Association(ICSA) Applied Statistics Symposium, 2006to 2009. She organized a topic contributedsession for the Joint Statistical Meetings inAugust 2008 in Denver. She is a core memberof the bioinformatics group who meet weeklyto develop software for microarray dataanalysis, genetic pathway, and understandingmusculoskeletal lineage. She is also a memberof the University of Connecticut Stem CellInstitute.

Nitis Mukhopadhyay was one of the four co-organizers and a Program Committee Member

-12-

for the Second International Workshop inSequential Methodologies (IWSM) that washeld in Troyes, France during July 13-15,2009.

Nalini Ravishanker continues to serve asfaculty coordinator for Statistics in the UConnEarly College Experience Program, interactingwith over 20 high schools in Connecticutoffering Stat 1100. She ran the annualworkshop for participating high schoolteachers in May 2008.

Yazhen Wang is a fellow of IMS and ASAand a permanent member of IMS and ICSA.He also serves in the IMS Committee to SelectAdministrative Officers, and is an electedboard member of ICSA.

Selected Publications

Ming-Hui Chen (with J.G. Ibrahim and S.Kim) 2008. Properties and implementation ofJeffreys's prior in binomial regression models.Journal of the American StatisticalAssociation, 103, 1659-1664.

(With J.G. Ibrahim and S. Kim) 2008.Bayesian variable selection for Cox regressionmodels with missing covariates. LifetimeData Analysis, 14, 496-520.

(With L. Huang, J.G. Ibrahim and S. Kim)2008. Bayesian variable selection andcomputation for generalized linear modelswith conjugate priors. Bayesian Analysis, 3,585-614.

(With S. Cheng and Y. Xi) 2008. A newmixture model for misclassification withapplications for survey data. SociologicalMethods and Research, 37, 75-104.

Zhiyi Chi (2008). False discovery ratecontrol with multivariate p-values. Electronic Journal of Statistics, 2:368-411.

(With Z. Tan) 2008. Positive false discoveryproportions: intrinsic bounds and adaptivecontrol. 18(3): 837-860.

Dipak K. Dey (with J. Liu) 2008. Skewrandom effects in multilevel binomial models:an alternative to nonparametric approach.Statistical Modelling, 8(3): 221-241. (With S. Tchumtchoua) 2008. Asemiparametric Bayesian estimation ofrandom coefficients discrete choice Bayesianmodels using aggregate data. Advances inEconometrics, 23, 275–307.

(With F. Guo and K. Holsinger) 2009. ABayesian hierarchical model for analysis ofSNP diversity in multilocus, multipopulationsamples. Journal of the American StatisticalAssociation, 104, 142-154.

(With S. Ghosh) 2009. A unified modelingframework for metabonomic profiledevelopment and covariate selection for acutetrauma subjects. Statistics in Medicines.

Joseph Glaz (With Z. Zhang) 2008. Bayesianvariable window scan statistics. Journal ofStatistical Planning and Inference, 138, no.11, 3561-3567.

(With M. Guerriero and P. Willett) 2009.Distributed target detection in a sensornetwork using scan statistics. IEEETransactions on Signal Processing, 57, no. 7,2629-2639.

(With J. Chen) 2009. Approximations for two-dimensional variable window scan statistics.In Scan Statistics: Methods and Applications,J. Glaz, V. Pozdnyakov and S. Wallenstein,(eds.), 109-130, Birkhauser, Boston.

-13-

(With J. Naus) 2009. Scan statistics. InMethods and Applications of Statistics in theLife and Health Sciences. N. Balakrishnan, C.B. Read, B. Vidakovic, S. Kotz and N. L.Johnson (eds.), John Wiley & Sons Ltd,Chichester, UK. (in press).

Ofer Harel 2008. Outfluence - The impact ofmissing values. Model Assisted Statistics andApplications, 3(2), 161-168.

(With J.L. Schafer) 2009. Partial and latentignorability in missing-data problems.Biometrika, 96, 37-50.

(With J. Siddique) 2009. MIDAS: A SASMacro for multiple imputation using distance-aided selection of donors. Journal ofStatistical Software, 29:1-18.

(With D.A. Wagstaff and S. Kranz) 2009. Apreliminary study of active compared withpassive imputation of missing body massindex values among non-Hispanic whiteyouths. American Journal of ClinicalNutrition, 89, 1025-1030.

Lynn Kuo (with F. Yu and M.-H. Chen)2008. Detecting differentially expressed genesusing calibrated Bayes factors. StatisticaSinica, V. 18, 783-802.

(With F. Yu and Y. Zhao) 2008. Statisticalmethods for identifying differentiallyexpressed genes in replicated microarrayexperiments: a review. (Chapter 20, inStatistical Advances in the BiomedicalSciences: Clinical Trials, Epidemiology,Survival Analysis and Bioinformatics, Eds:Biswas, A., Datta, S., Fine, J., and Segal, M.,Wiley, 341-363.

2008. Bayesian modeling for masked data inEncyclopedia of Statistics in Quality andReliability Eds: F. Ruggeri, R. Kenett, and F.Faltin, Wiley & Sons.

(With Y. Zhao, W. Xie and F. Yu) 2008. Apreliminary study on combining classifiers forselecting differentially expressed genes. JSMProceedings, Business and EconomicsStatistics Section [CD-ROM], Alexandria,VA: American Statistical Association: 2984-2990. Suman Majumdar 2005. On convergence ofrandom linear functionals. Statist. Probab.Lett., 75, 249-255.

2005. On weak convergence in ̀ (H). Sankhya,67, 671-674.

12007. Uniform L posterior consistency incompact Gaussian shift experiments. Journalof Statistical Planning and Inference, 137,2102-2114.

Cyr M’lan (with L. Joseph and D.B.Wolfson) 2006. Bayesian Sample SizeDetermination for Case-Control Studies.Journal of the American StatisticalAssociation - Theory and Methods, Vol 101,760-772.

(With M.O. Orlova, K.B. Majorov, I.V.Lyadova , E.B. Eruslanov, C.M.T.Greenwood, E. Schurr and A.S. Apt.) 2006.Constitutive differences in gene expressionprofiles parallel genetic pattern ofsusceptibility to tuberculosis in mice. Infectionand Immunity,74, 6, 3668-3672.

(With L. Joseph and D.B. Wolfson) 2008.Bayesian sample size determination forbinomial proportions. Bayesian Analysis,3(2):269-296.

Nitis Mukhopadhyay (with B.M. de Silva)2008. Theory and applications of a newmethodology for the random sequentialprobability ratio test. Statistical Methodology,5, 424-453.

-14-

(With W. Pepe) 2009. Plug-in two-stagenormal density estimation under MISE loss:Unknown variance. Sequential Analysis, 28,251-280.

2009. On px1 dependent random variableshaving each (p-1)x1 sub-vector made up ofIID observations with examples. Statistics andProbability Letters, 79, 1585-1589.

(With Debanjan Bhattacharjee) 2009. OnSPRT and RSPRT for the unknown mean in anormal distribution whose variance is amultiple of the mean. Proceedings of SecondInternational Workshop in SequentialMethodologies: (2009), Troyes, France, 6pages.

Vladimir Pozdnyakov 2008. A Note onOccurrence of Gapped Patterns in I.I.D.Sequences. Discrete Applied Mathematics,156, 93-102.

(With J. Glaz) 2007. A NonparametricRepeated Significance Test with AdaptiveTarget Sample Size. Journal of StatisticalPlanning and Inference, 137, 869-878.

(With J. Glaz , M. Kulldorff, and J.M. Steele)2006. Gambling Teams and Waiting Timesfor Patterns in Two-state Markov Chains.Journal of Applied Probability, 43, 127-140.

(With J.M. Steele) 2004. On the MartingaleFramework for Futures Prices. StochasticProcesses and Their Applications, 109, 69-77.

Nalini Ravishanker (with M. Mallick and N.Kannan) 2008. Bivariate positive stablefrailty models. Statistics and ProbabilityLetters, 78 (15), 2371-2377.

(With J.P. Nolan) 2009. Simultaneousprediction intervals for ARMA processeswith stable innovations. Journal of Fore-casting, 28, 235-246.

(With J. Pai) 2009. A multivariatepreconditioned conjugate gradient approachfor maximum likelihood estimation in vectorlong memory processes. Statistics andProbability Letters, 79(9), 1282-1289.

Rick Vitale 2007. Multivariate medians andmeasure-symmetrization. In: Proceedings,Vardi Memorial Conference (R. Liu, W.Strawderman and C-H Zhang, eds.). Instituteof Mathematical Statistics Lecture Notes --Monograph Series, 54, 260–267.

2008. On the Gaussian representation ofintrinsic volumes. Stat. Probab. Lett., 78,1246–1249.

(With Y. Wang) 2008. The Wills functionalfor Gaussian processes. Stat. Probab. Lett.,78, 2181–2187.

Yazhen Wang 2006. Selected review onwavelets. In Frontier Statistics, Festschrift forPeter Bickel(H. Koul and J.Fan, eds.), pp.163-179.

(With J.M. Clapp) 2006. Definingneighborhood boundaries: are census tractsobsolete? Journal of Urban Economics, 59,259-284.

(With J. Fan) 2007. Multi-scale Jump andVolatility Analysis for High-FrequencyFinancial Data. Journal of the AmericanStatistical Association 102, 1349-1362.

Jun Yan (with J.P. Fine) 2008. Analysis ofepisodic data with application to recurrent pulmonaryexacerbations in cystic fibrosis patients.Journal of the American StatisticalAssociation, 103: 498–510.

(With M.K. Cowles and B.J. Smith) 2009.Reparameterized and marginalized posteriorand predictive sampling for complexBayesian geostatistical models. Journal ofComputational and Graphical Statistics, 18,

-15-

262–282.

(With J. Huang) 2009. Partly functionaltemporal process regression with semiparametricprofile estimating functions. Biometrics,65(2): 431–440.

(With M. Gebremichael) 2009. Estimatingactual rainfall from satellite rainfall products.Atmospheric Research, 92(4): 481–488.

Published Books

Ming-Hui Chen (with J.D. Petruccelli and B.Nandram) 1999. Applied Statistics forEngineers. Text Book, Prentice-Hall, Inc.,ISBN 0-13-565953-1.

(With Q.-M. Shao and J.G. Ibrahim) 2000.Monte Carlo Methods in BayesianComputation. Springer-Verlag, ISBN0-387-98935-8.

(With J.G. Ibrahim and D. Sinha) 2001.Bayesian Survival Analysis. Springer-Verlag,ISBN 0-387-95277-2.

Dipak K. Dey (with C.R. Rao) 2005.Handbook of Statistics Vol. 25 : BayesianThinking, Modeling and Computation.Elsevier Science, Amsterdam.

(With S.K. Upadhyay and U. Singh) 2006.Bayesian Statistics and its Application.Proceedings of the International Conferenceon Bayesian Statistics, Varanasi, India.

(With S. Ghosh and B.K. Mallick) 2009.Bayesian Bioinformatics. Chapman & HallCRC (forthcoming).

Joseph Glaz (With V. Pozdnyakov and S.Wallenstein) ( Eds.) (2009). Scan Statistics:Methods and Applications. Birkhauser,Boston.

Nitis Mukhopadhyay 2000. Probability andStatistical Inference (ISBN #0-8247-0379-0).Marcel Dekker (Taylor & Francis Group).

(With S. Datta and S. Chattopadhyay) 2004.Applied Sequential Methodologies (ISBN #0-8247-5395-X). Marcel Dekker (Taylor &Francis Group).

2006. Introductory Statistical Inference (ISBN#13:978-1-57444-613-5). Marcel Dekker(Taylor & Francis Group).

(With Basil M. de Silva) 2009. SequentialMethods and Their Applications (ISBN#13:978-1-58488-102-5). Chapman &Hall/CRC.

Nalini Ravishanker (with D.K. Dey) 2002.A First Course in Linear Model Theory.Chapman Hall, CRC.(With Basil M. de Silva) 2009. SequentialMethods and Their Applications (ISBN#13:978-1-58488-102-5). Chapman &Hall/CRC.

Nalini Ravishanker (with D.K. Dey) 2002.A First Course in Linear Model Theory.Chapman Hall, CRC.

-16-

News from the Statistical Consulting Service(SCS)

Updates from SCS

In spring 2009, the name of the Center for Applied Statistics has been changed to theStatistical Consulting Service. The Statistical Consulting Service (SCS) provides advice onstatistical problems arising in the preparation of studies, the analysis of data and the interpretationof results. The advisory service is available to graduate students, faculty members, and non-university clients. This service can provide, for example, direct assistance in carrying out dataanalyses and report writing. The SCS also provides software consultation in the form of shortcourses. The SCS does not supply expert witnesses in civil or criminal court cases.

The SCS is provided by the Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut. It serves asa statistical consulting resource for external clients in business, government, and industry. It alsoprovides statistical services to faculty and graduate student researchers throughout the university andgenerates collaborative research with them. It serves as a training facility to graduate students inapplied statistics. It provides a center for discussion on research problems and methodologicaladvances in statistics and probability.

With the help from Fan (Terry) Zhang, a password protected online application system wasdeveloped in February 2009. Since its launch, this online system has processed 16 SCS projects.From summer 2008 to summer 2009, SCS has provided consulting services for 28 projects. Theclients of these projects are from various departments within Storrs campus, Law Schools, andUCHC as well as other universities and local companies. For more information, visit our website.

Pfizer Global Research & Development Student Fellowship Program(January - December, 2009)

The Pfizer Global Research & Development Student Fellowship Program has been extendedto another year. Miaomiao Ge becomes a Student Fellow supporting Clinical Statistics of theInfectious Disease Therapeutic Area (IDTA) for Pfizer Inc. In November 2008, the Department ofStatistics at University of Connecticut and the Global Research & Development of Pfizer Inc. signeda joint agreement of the extension of this Fellowship program. Under this agreement, Miaomiao Geworks in Pfizer 10 hours each week in spring 2009, and 20 hours each week in summer, and 10 hourseach week in fall 2009. This Fellowship program is effective for a one-year term during 2009 fromJanuary to December.

-17-

Pfizer Colloquia Series

Thursday, October 29, 2009http://www.stat.uconn.edu/~nitis/Pfizer/index.htm

This project began more than 30 years ago at the University of Connecticut-Storrs under theleadership of the Late Professor Harry O. Posten (University of Connecticut-Storrs) and Dr. DavidS. Salsburg (Retired from Pfizer Global Research and Development-Groton, Connecticut).

In view of the historical importance of this project, this joint initiative has been continuallysupported by funding from Pfizer Global Research and Development-Groton, Connecticut, theDepartment of Statistics at the University of Connecticut-Storrs, and the American StatisticalAssociation (ASA).

The 22 colloquium in the long-running Pfizer Colloquia Series is in the preliminary stagesnd

of planning. It will be hosted by the Department of Statistics at University of Connecticut-Storrs onThursday, October 29, 2009. The National Committee (which I Chair) has identified Dr. Stephen E.Fienberg, the Maurice Falk University Professor of Statistics and Social Science in the Departmentof Statistics, the Machine Learning Department and Cylab at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr.Fienberg (http://www.stat.cmu.edu/) will speak in the series “Pfizer Colloquia by DistinguishedStatisticians in Honor of Dr. David S. Salsburg”. Dr. Fienberg is a prolific researcher, author and co-author of numerous books, edited volumes and research publications. He has held top executivepositions in many national and international scholarly organizations. He is an elected member of theNational Academy of Sciences. His other honors and awards include Thorsten Sellin Fellow ofthe American Academy of Political and Social Science (2004), elected fellow of the Royal Societyof Canada, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Association for theAdvancement of Science, the American Statistical Association, and the Institute of MathematicalStatistics.

In addition to Dr. Fienberg’s Pfizer colloquium, a conversation will also be held between himand two other invited distinguished colleagues (TBA) in the series “Conversations withDistinguished Statisticians in Memory of Professor Harry O. Posten”.

Details will be posted on the website http://www.stat.uconn.edu/~nitis/Pfizer/index.htm asmore information become available. Please stay tuned.

Prepared by:

Nitis Mukhopadhyay

http://www.cylab.cmu.eduhttp://www.cylab.cmu.edu

-18-

New England Statistics Symposium

The Department of Statistics of the University of Connecticut hosted the New EnglandStatistics Symposium (NESS) on Saturday, April 25, 2009. The purpose of NESS is to bring togetherstatisticians from all over New England to a central location to share research, discuss emerging issuesin the field and to network with colleagues.

This annual statistics symposium featured two keynote talks by Professors James O. Berger ofDuke University and Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute and Richard A. Davis ofthe Department of Statistics at Columbia. Their talks on “Bayesian Adjustment for Multiplicity” and“Allpass Processes with Applications to Finance” were well attended by the symposium participants.In this NESS, there was also a half day short course entitled “Hierarchical Modeling for Spatially-referenced Data with Applications to Environmental Sciences and Public Health" presented byProfessor Sudipto Banerjee, Division of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Minnesotaon April 24, 2009. This was the first time in the NESS history that we offered a short course. The shortcourse was very successful and more than 50 participants took the short course and we had to close theshort course registration early due to the limited space.

In addition, there were eight invited themed sessions including one invited panal discussionsession on career development and four contributed sessions. The topics of these oral presentationsinclude Challenges in High Dimensional Data Analysis with Applications; Sequential Methodologiesand Their Applications; Probability; Statistical Signal and Image Processing: Methodology andApplications; Methods and Applications of Point Processes; Estimation Theory and Methodology;Spatial and Temporal Modeling; Biostatistical Methodology; Applications of Statistics in Natural andSocial Sciences; Statistical Methods for Complex Data; and Estimation, Regression and ModelBuilding. Overall, there were over 170 participants attended this year’s NESS or short course.

There were also two special invited IBM T.J. Watson Student Awards Sessions and thespeakers of these invited sessions were the applicants of this year’s student awards. Based on theoverall quality of the research, the NESS organizing committee selected three winners and onehonorable mention, including Paul D. Baines of Harvard University, Xiaojing Wang and Jian Zou ofthe University of Connecticut, and Tasneem Zaihra of University of Windsor, Canada.

http://www.stat.uconn.edu/ness09/keynote.htm

-19-

The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) Affiliates Annual Meeting was held inStorrs on April 24, 2009, one day prior to the NESS. Several participants attended both the NISSAffiliates Meeting and NESS.

This year’s NESS was sponsored by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, IBM T.J. WatsonResearch Center, Pfizer Global Research & Development, Smith Hanley Associates LLC, the Officeof Sponsored Programs, Dean’s Office of the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, and the Departmentof Statistics of the University of Connecticut. With such a strong financial support, the organizingcommittee was able to waive the registration fees for attending both NESS and the short course for allstudent participants who gave oral presentations at the symposium. Professors Ming-Hui Chen (chair),Zhiyi Chi, and Vladimir Pozdnyakov served on this year’s organizing committee.

This year marks the 23rd anniversary of the New England Statistics Symposium. The first NewEngland Statistics Symposium was held at the University of Connecticut in 1987 and we continue thetradition of hosting the symposium on alternate years. On other years it rotates among Colleges andUniversities throughout New England. The 24 nd New England Statistics Symposium will be held atthe Department of Statistics, Harvard University in April 2010.

NESS Keynote Speakers of the NESS and

IBM T.J. Watson Student Award Winner Xiaojing Wang

-20-

Panelists in Career Development Panel Discussion Session

Joseph Glaz, Yuchen Fama, Vladimir Pozdnyakov, Michael Steele,

and Balaji Raman at 2009 NESS

-21-

Graduate Students at NESS

2 International Workshop in Sequentialnd

Methodologies and Wald Prize in Sequential

Analysis

http://www.utt.fr/iwsm2009/

The Second International Workshop in Sequential Methodologies (IWSM) was recently heldat the University of Technology Troyes (UTT), France, June 14-17, 2009. The conference venue waswithin 90 minutes train ride from Paris. The IWSM2009 was partly sponsored by UTT, CNRS,University of Southern California, GdR Macs, Taylor & Francis, and others.

The four co-organizers were George V. Moustakides (University of Patras, Greece), NitisMukhopadhyay (University of Connecticut, U.S.A.), Igor Nikiforov (University of Technology Troyes,France), and Alexander G. Tartakovsky (University of Southern California, U.S.A.). The organizingcommittee members worked diligently with the members of the international Program Committee andthe Steering Committee with substantial coordination and cooperation from the Local OrganizingCommittee and Nikiforov (Chair).

The conference consisted of 5 plenary sessions and other invited paper sessions. The firstplenary speaker was Albert N. Shiryaev (Steklov Mathematical Institute, Russia) who presented the

-22-

Sequential Analysis (SQA) journal Editor’s Special Invited Paper. Other plenary speakers were MoshePollak (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel), Marie Huskova (Charles University, Czech Republic),and Vladimir Dragalin (Wyeth, U.S.A.).

Mukhopadhyay organized and chaired a plenary panel discussion session involving Marie

Huskova, Tumulesh Solanky (University of New Orleans, U.S.A.), Alex Tartakovsky, and Shelemyahu

Zacks (Binghamton University, U.S.A.). This panel discussed important issues such as the present and

future of the field of sequential analysis and addressed questions and comments raised from the

audience.

One special session was dedicated to “Celebration of Sequential Analysis”. The first half of this

session was “Abraham Wald Prize in Sequential Analysis Ceremony”. An international committee

consisting of Makoto Aoshima (Tsukuba University, Japan), Michael Baron (University of Texas-

Dallas, U.S.A.), Pinyuen Chen (Syracuse University, U.S.A.), and Solanky (Chair) was formed. After

some rounds of confidential voting by the editorial board members of the journal SQA, the selection

committee came up with its choice of the best publication from SQA 2008, v. 27. The winner was

announced and congratulated by Solanky and Mukhopadhyay. This year’s award has gone to Yajun Mei

(Georgia Institute of Technology, U.S.A.) for his paper, “Is Average Run Length to False Alarm Always

an Informative Criterion?” which appeared in SQA (2008), 27, no. 4, pp. 351-419. This was a

fundamental contribution in the area of change-point and detection problems and it appeared with 8

substantial discussion pieces from leading experts in this field followed by the “Author’s Responses”.

Congratulations to Yajun Mei.

The Abraham Wald Prize is funded by SQA’s publisher, Taylor & Francis Group, as well as the

Wald family, friends, and editorial board members of the journal. The award includes a plaque, a

certificate, and a nominal honorarium. This year’s winner, Yajun Mei, has donated his share of the

honorarium to the Abraham Wald Prize fund. This gesture is greatly appreciated.

The second half of the session “Celebration of Sequential Analysis” was devoted to Shiryaev’s

75 birthday celebration. Tartakovsky discussed some of the path-breaking contributions of Shiryaev.th

Tartakovsky also emphasized Shiryaev’s long-standing monumental contributions and their influence

in shaping this field in many ways.

The conference was attended by nearly 100 researchers and practitioners and they came toTroyes from all over the globe. From the University of Connecticut-Storrs, Debanjan Bhattacharjee, JoeGlaz, and Mukhopadhyay presented invited papers. Apart from 5 plenary sessions, the conferenceprogram included 22 separate invited paper sessions, and overall 80 invited papers of 30 minutesduration each were presented.

The host institution’s facilities were first-rate. The people from the picturesque town of Troyes

were very friendly and helpful and it was a great pleasure for the participants to gather around in Troyes.

All participants will remember the local hospitality for a very long time. Everyone’s heartfelt thanks go

to the members of the local organizing committee and its Chair, Igor Nikiforov.

Prepared by:

Nitis Mukhopadhyay

-23-

Albert N. Shiryaev delivering the plenary address

Nitis Mukhopadhyay and the

Wald Prize Winner,

Yajun Mei (from left to right)

Nitis Mukhopadhyay, Marie Huskova,

Alex Tartakovsky, Shelley Zacks and Tumulesh Solanky in the Panel Discussion

-24-

Shelley Zacks, Joe Glaz and Nitis Mukhopadhyay (from left to right)

Department Awards Day

Nalini Ravishanker for her 20 years of service at the University of Connecticut.

-25-

Faculty News

Dipak Dey has become an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences,March 2009.

Joseph Glaz has just become Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). He willbe receiving the award at the Joint Statistical Meeting in Washington DC in August 2009.

Ofer Harel received a travel award (JSM 2008) from the Statistics in Epidemiology Section of ASA.

Nitis Mukhopadhyay received the 2008 Abraham Wald Prize in Sequential Analysis, August, 2008.

Colloquia

We continue to have a stream of excellent colloquia:

Lisha Chen, Department of Statistics, YaleUniversity

Marco A.R. Ferreira, University of Missouri,Columbia

Jason Fine, Department of Biostatistics,University of North Carolina

Mayetri Gupta, Boston University School ofPublic Health

Olympia Hadjiliadis, Department of Mathematics, Brooklyn College and theGraduate Center, City University ofNew York

Gerardo Hernandez-del-Valle, StatisticsDepartment, Columbia University

Daeyoung Kim, Department of Mathematics andStatistics, University of Massachusetts

Guido Knapp, Fakultat Statistik, TechnischeUniversitat Dortmund

Hongfei Li, IBM T.J. Watson Research Center

Hernando Ombao, Community Health andCenter for Statistical Sciences, BrownUniversity

Nalini Ravishanker, Department of Statistics,University of Connecticut

Samiran Sinha, Department of Statistics, TexasA&M University

Seongho Song, Department of MathematicalSciences, University of Cincinnati

Dongchu Sun, University of Missouri,Columbia

Rajeshwari Sundaram, Eunice Kennedy ShriverNational Institute of Child Health andHuman Development, NIH, DHHS

Peter Turchin, Department of Ecology andEvolutionary Biology, University ofConnecticut

Alejandro Veen, IBM

Juan Vivar, Department of Statistics, Universityof Connecticut

-26-

Brian Whitcomb, School of Public Health,University of Massachusetts

Jun Yan, Department of Statistics, University ofConnecticut

Chuanrong Zhang, Department of Geography,University of Connecticut

Tong Zhang, Department of Statistics, RutgersUniversity

Alumni News

Sudipto Banerjee (Ph.D. 2000) received the Abdel El-Shaarawi Young Research's Award, 2009as a recognition of outstanding contributions to "environmetric" research. This award is given out by theTIES (The International Environmetrics Society) Awards Committee annually. The award, which includestravel to and registration at the 2009 TIES meeting in Bologna, a plaque, a year of membership in TIESwith subscription to Environmetrics, and a cash prize, is awarded to a young investigator (not yet 41 yearsold at the time of the meeting) who has made outstanding contributions to environmetrics.

Saibal Chattopadhyay (Ph.D. 1993) has become the Dean of the Indian Institute of Management,Calcutta.

Kathleen McLaughlin (M.S. 1984) was the recipient of the third annual Alpha Lambda DeltaFaculty of the Year. She was nominated for this award by Vincent Pacileo who was a student in herStatistics 1100 class during the Fall 2008 semester. The award was presented to her by Vice ProvostMakowsky and Vincent Pacileo at the Alpha Lambda Delta Induction Ceremony on February 19,2009. Alpha Lambda Delta, a national honor society for first year students, recognizes high academicachievement in the first year of college.

Rongwei (Rochelle) Fu (Ph.D. 2003) has been promoted to Associate Professor in the Departmentof Public Health and Preventive Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon.

Huayan Gao (M.S. 2006) is working in Millward Brown Company, Fairfield, CT.

Sujit Ghosh (Ph.D. 1996) Professor, North Carolina State University, became a Fellow of theAmerican Statistical Association.

Jaydip Mukhopadhyay (Ph.D. 2007) has become a proud father of a baby girl.

Sujit Sahu (Ph.D., 1994). One of the leading statisticians at the University of Southampton has

launched in India. During his visit, Dr. Sahu gave talks and presentations at the British Council in Kolkataand Mumbai, about the city of Southampton, the University and the Mathematics, Statistics and ActuarialScience programmes that are available to Indian undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Hailin Sang (M.S. 2007) has joined the Mathematics Department at UConn for the Ph.D.program.

http://www.soton.ac.uk/%7Esks

-27-

Yonghong Wang (M.S. 2007) is working in Discover Card Services, Chicago, IL.

Student News

Brien Aronov and Shan Hu received the 2009 Quality and Productivity Research ConferenceScholarship Award, June 2009.

Elijah Gaioni defended his Ph.D. thesis in July and has accepted a position at IBM T.J. Watsonin New York.

Weimiao Guo has accepted a full time position at the Hartford Insurance. Patrick Harrington is working as a summer intern at the edGE lab, Stamford, CT.

Sandra Hurtado-Rua received an award for attending the spatio-temporal workshop at SAMSI inSeptember, 2009.

Patrick Joyce defended his thesis in August and has accepted a position at the Census Bureau.

Ran Liu received an award for attending the spatio-temporal workshop at SAMSI in September,2009.

Greg Matthews presented a poster at ENAR 2009 and a talk at the 2009 NESS.

Balaji Raman defended his thesis in August and accepted a position at Yale University.

Jeff Stratton presented a paper at the 2009 NESS.

Sylvie Tchumtchoua received the 2009 Mitofsky Award for Excellence in Public Opinion Researchgiven annually by the Roper Center. These awards provide graduate students with a stipend of $1,200 toconduct research during the summer, using data in the Roper Center archives. Recipients are chosen basedon the potential theoretical or methodological contribution of the proposed research to the applicant’s fieldof study. She has also been selected as this year's recipient of the Phi Kappa Phi Graduate Award, March29, 2009. She has also received an award for attending the spatio-temporal workshop at SAMSI inSeptember, 2009.

Xia Wang defended her Ph.D. thesis in May 2009 and has accepted a position as a PostdoctoralFellow at the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) in North Carolina beginning in June.

Xiaojing Wang completed his summer internship.

Ziwen Wei is working with the bioinformatics group of David Rowe, Lynn Kuo and Dong-GukShin this summer on microarray, gene set enrichment, and pathway data analysis.

-28-

Rui Wu is working as a summer intern at the Office of Translational Sciences at FDA (Bethesda,MD) sponsored through its contract with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE).

Jian Zou defended his Ph.D. thesis in July and he has accepted a position as a Postdoctoral Fellowat the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) in North Carolina.

Student Achievement Awards for 2008

Gottfried Noether Award: Xiaojing Wang

H. Fairfield Smith Award: Xiaojing Wang and Debanjan Bhattacharjee

Certificate of Appreciation for the Best Performance in Statistical Inference: Sylvie Tchumtchoua

Certificate of Appreciation for the Best Performance in Probability: Miaomiao Ge

Recent Ph.D.’s and Their Current Affiliations

William Pepe, Ph.D., 2007, AT&T.Feng Guo, Ph.D., 2007, Assistant Professor, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg,

VirginiaPengfei Li, Ph.D., 2007Jaydip Mukhopadhyay, Ph.D., 2007, Senior Research Biostatistician, Bristol-Myers Squibb,

Wallingford, ConnecticutFang Yu, Ph.D., 2007, Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska, Omaha, NebraskaYingmei Xi, Ph.D., 2008, Averion International Corporation, Southborough, MassachusettsSourish Das, Ph.D., 2008, Postdoctoral Fellow/Visiting Faculty, SAMSI/Duke University,

Durham, North Carolina.Wangang Xie, Ph.D., 2009, Statistician, Abbott Laboratories, IllinoisYifang Zhao, Ph.D., 2009Xia Wang, Ph.D., 2009, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS),

North CarolinaJian Zou, Ph.D., 2009, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS),

North CarolinaElijah Gaioni, Ph.D., 2009, IBM, T.J. Watson, New YorkPatrick Joyce, Ph.D., 2009, Bureau of CensusBalaji Raman, Ph.D., 2009, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, Yale

University.

-29-

Recent Masters

Huayan Gao, Amit Loewy, Jian Meng, Chengxia Zhou, Kishori Konwar, Hailin Sang,Yonghong Wang, Xinming Hao, Jaime L. Glanovsky, Christopher Raymond, Miguel Vivar, Jiali Tang,Baikang Pei, Yingge Qu, Tyler McCormick, Haimen Zhang, Fei Han, Chen Zhang, Weimiao Guo, XiaWang and Rohini Sen.

Recent Bachelors

Stephen Aloi, David Andrews, Patricia Apruzzese, Christina Bloking, Meghan Carabina, ScottD'Alessandri, Jessica Feldman, Michael Grabowski, Robert Jordan, Katrina Lerman, Charles McCarthy,Wesley Mohn, Michael Muldoff, Rina Rahardjo, Ysanne Richards, Meredith Scarlata, Brian Trost,Melissa Woelfel, Todd Turton, Angelo LaBella, Serena Del Basso, Michael Tosca, Cheyenne Updegrave,Elizabeth Hoyt, Puneet Nanda, Marie Buemi, Nina Steele, Kenneth Seder, Heather Sullivan, JenniferGoetsch, Christopher Ragali, Jennifer Slechta, Vicki Stuffle, Michael Zarrilli, Nina Steele, JosephDeMello, Wesley Paprzyca, Shawn Mayers, Erin Pryor, Taylor Stewart, Loren Thompson, Aaron Woomer,Jason Liu and Ross Yudowitch.

Faculty, Staff and Adjunct Faculty

Robert Apruzese, Adjunct Lectuere robert.apruzese@uconn.eduCathy Brown, Administrative Assistant cathy.brown@uconn.eduTracy Burke, Secretary tracy.burke@uconn.eduJoseph Cappelleri, Lecturer and Adjunct joseph.c.cappelleri!pfizer.comMing-Hui Chen, Professor mhchen@stat.uconn.eduZhiyi Chi, Associate Professor zhiyi.chi@uconn.eduWilliam Congero, Adjunct Lecturer william.congero@uconn.eduDipak K. Dey, Professor and Head dipak.dey@uconn.eduEvarist Gine, Adjunct Professor (Math) gine@math.uconn.eduJoseph Glaz, Professor and Associate Head joseph.glaz@uconn.eduOfer Harel, Assistant Professor oharel@satat.uconn.eduKent Holsinger, Adjunct Professor (EEB) kent.holsinger@uconn.eduLynn Kuo, Professor lynn@stat.uconn.eduCyr M’lan, Assistant Professor mlan@stat.uconn.eduSuman Majumdar, Associate Professor (Stamford) suman@stat.uconn.eduKate McLaughlin, Adjunct Lecturer kate.mclaughlin@att.netNitis Mukhopadhyay, Professor nitis.mukhopadhyay@uconn.eduVladimir Pozdnyakov, Associate Professor (Hartford) vladimir.pozdnyakov@uconn.eduNalini Ravishanker, Professor nalini@stat.uconn.eduBonnie Ray, Adjunct Associate Professor bonnier@us.ibm.comGautam Tripathi, Adjunct Associate Professor (Economics) gautam.tripathi@uconn.edu

-30-

Richard Vitale, Professor r.vitale@uconn.eduStephen Walsh, Adjunct walsh@nso.uchc.eduYazhen Wang, Professor yzwang@stat.uconn.eduJun Yan, Assistant Professor jun.yan@uconn.edu

Xiaojing Wang, Debanjan Bhattacharjee receiving awards from Dipak Dey.

Graduate students at the holiday party.

-31-

Alumni Reply Form

Please complete and return this form for our alumni files. Include news (professional and/orpersonal) of your current activities, or suggestions for the next issue of our newsletter. Mail it toCathy Brown, Department of Statistics, University of Connecticut, 215 Glenbrook Road, U-4120,Storrs, CT 06269-4120 or fax it to (860) 486-4113.

Name _______________________________ Degree(s) and year(s)_______________________

Residence__________________________________ Home Phone________________________

City, State, Zip_________________________________________________________________

Position ______________________________________________________________________

Business Address ______________________________________________________________

City, State, Zip ________________________________________________________________

Business Phone ______________________________Fax Number________________________

Internet/Commercial Electronic Mail Address ________________________________________

Please include some information about yourself: (unless you request otherwise, we would liketo share this information in future Newsletters.)

The Department welcomes suggestions for future newsletters. Please feel free to e-mail us tostatadm@uconnvm.uconn.edu. The University of Connecticut, Department of Statistics websiteaddress is http://www.stat.uconn.edu and phone number is (860) 486-3414.

A Message from the Department HeadSelected Faculty ActivitiesGrantsOUTrEaCHSelected PublicationsPublished BooksNew England Statistics Symposium2nd International Workshop in Sequential Methodologies and Wald Prize in Sequential AnalysisDepartment Awards DayFaculty NewsColloquiaAlumni News