Personnel updates: new faculty and staff and a few goodbyes
The last few years have brought with them wonderfully strong staff and faculty growth, supported by Divisional Dean Olesik and Executive Dean Horn at the College of Arts and Sciences. We are glad to have received such positive recognition of the increasingly important role of statistics at the university. Since the Autumn of 2023, we have had 6 tenure-track faculty, 2 teaching practice faculty, and 2 full-time staff members join the department! We have also said good-bye to 3 tenure-track and 1 teaching practice faculty members who we wish well in their new positions.
We are thrilled to introduce our newest tenure-track faculty:
Dr. Arnab Auddy (autumn 2024)
Dr. Arnab Auddy comes to us from a position as postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Informatics at UPenn. He received his PhD in Statistics from Columbia University under the supervision of Professor Ming Yuan. Arnab has worked on problems at the intersection of statistics, optimization, and theoretical computer science. Interests include: Tensors, Statistical and Computational Tradeoffs, Spectral Methods in High Dimensional Statistics, Nonparametric Independence Testing.
Dr. Xiaoxuan Cai (autumn 2022)
Dr. Xiaoxuan Cai comes to us from a position as postdoctoral researcher at the Mailman School of Public Health, Department of Biostatistics at Columbia University under the supervision of Dr. Linda Valeri. She received her PhD training in Biostatistics with Dr. Forrest W. Crawford, at the School of Public Health at Yale University. Her research is devoted to addressing statistical challenges and methodological problems in causal inference, missing data, mediation analysis, and machine learning. Her work covers applications in intervention evaluation and trial design for outcomes subject to interference (e.g. infectious disease). She is most excited about the analysis of multivariate time series of digital data from mobile devices.
Dr. Kate Hu (autumn 2024)
Dr. Kate Hu comes to us from a position as postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Prior to that, she was the Head of Data Science at Aclima Inc, where she was responsible for research and development of high resolution hyper-local air pollution maps. She has also worked as a senior data scientist at Climate LLC, where she used data science to grow crops and protect the environment. She received her PhD in Biostatistics from the University of Washington, Seattle.
Her research has focused on developing methodologies to use auxiliary information embedded in time series and spatial data to adjust for unmeasured and mismeasured confounding bias.
Interests include: Precision agriculture, Epidemiology, Using auxiliary information to improve statistical inference, Cost-effective study design, Z-estimation
Dr. Isa Marques (autumn 2024)
Dr. Isa Marques Isa comes to us from a position as a lecturer in statistics and data analytics at the University of Glasgow. Prior to that, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Statistics and Spatial Data Science at the University of Göttingen in Germany.
Isa holds a degree in Applied Statistics, and her research focuses on spatial confounding, non-stationarity, and computational statistics. She works with environmental applications, such as forestry.
Interests include: Modelling in space and time, Bayesian modelling and inference, Computational statistics, and Environmental, ecological sciences and sustainability
Dr. Sally Paganin (autumn 2023)
Dr. Sally Paganin comes to us from a position as a Research Fellow in the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, working with Jeff Miller on statistical methods for early cancer detection.
Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, where she worked with Perry de Valpine & Chris Paciorek on computational aspects of Bayesian models. She is also an active collaborator to NIMBLE, a flexible R-based software for hierarchical models (and more!).
Interests include: Bayesian nonparametrics, computational statistics, hierarchical models, item response theory, models for latent variables, statistical genomics, and data visualization.
Dr. Massimiliano Russo (spring 2024)
Dr. Massimilano Russo comes to us from a position as Associate Biostatistician and Instructor of Medicine in the Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital & Harvard Medical School. Prior to that, Max was a postdoctoral research fellow in Statistics within the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science (CRS) at Harvard Medical School. Before he was a postdoctoral research fellow in Statistics within the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science (CRS) at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He was part of Prof. Lorenzo Trippa’s group at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI) in the Department of Data Sciences, and collaborated with Prof. Jeff Miller of the department of Biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH).
Max obtained his PhD in Statistics at the University of Padova (Italy), where he worked on Bayesian methods for tensor factorization models under the supervision of Prof. Bruno Scarpa. During his PhD, Max spent about one year and an half as a visiting research scholar at Duke University, NC, USA working under the supervision of Prof. David B. Dunson.
Interests include: Bayesian statistics; Tensor factorization for categorical variables; Hierarchical models; Decision theory; Analysis and design of clinical trials; Machine learning; and, Computational statistics.
Dr. Paul Wiemann (autumn 2024)
Dr. Paul Wiemann comes to us from a position as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin. Prior to that, he was a postdoctoral researcher with the Chair in Statistics within the University of Göttingen in Germany.
Paul holds degrees in Computer Science and Applied Statistics, and he received his PhD under the supervision of Dr. Thomas Kneib. Among other projects, he is working as one of the main developers on the DFG funded software project Leisel.
We are also delighted to have welcomed a new faculty member to the group of teaching practice faculty who are new to the department (described elsewhere in this newsletter):
Dr. Jillian Morrison (autumn 2024)
Dr. Jillian Morrison comes to us from a position as Assistant Professor of Statistical and Data Sciences at the College of Wooster. Jillian received her PhD in Statistical Science from Washington State University, and she is also the Communications Chair of the Caucus for Women in Statistics.
Her research focuses on problems in both the physical and social sciences, and she has also worked on designing data science programs and building statistical software packages for visualizing data. In her research she has also collaborated with experts in psychology, chemistry, education, and veterinary medicine.
Elly is selfishly extremely excited to have a new staff member join the administrative team:
Cassie Johnson (spring 2024)
Cassie joined the department in March 2024 as the Administrative Assistant to the Chair, Dr. Elly Kaizar. She comes to us with a rich array of experiences, most recently working in an administrative support role at Nationwide Children's Hospital. Prior to that, she worked in real estate, and even owned her own coffee shop!
Cassie earned a BA in History from Penn State along with a certificate in Diversity and Inclusion in 2023. In her free time, she enjoys cooking, gardening, music, and reading. She is thrilled to be a part of a collaborative academic environment and to support the work being done through the Department of Statistics! Cassie shares a small part of her time with the Department of Mathematics, where she primarily manages student worker reception staff.
Jennifer Wells (spring 2023)
Jen joined the department in January 2023 as the Academic Program Services Specialist serving as advisor and support staff for the Data Analytics major. Jen comes to us with extensive experience in advising and program coordination in higher education.
The Department of Statistics has also recently added undergraduate student workers to help us with administration and welcoming visitors to the department. This autumn, we are lucky to have three fantastic students working with us. They have all contributed tremendously to support various projects.
Maria Cabral is currently majoring in Nursing, and is excited to have begun doing rounds as part of her training this year. She also serves in student leadership roles here at Ohio State. Her primary interests are genetics and pediatric development.
Rachel Dreher is currently working on a BS in Security and Intelligence with a minor in Information Security. What she finds most interesting about her major is intelligence analysis and conducting thorough research on different parts of the world and learned about how they are all interconnected.
Rabika Lohar is working on two majors – a BS in biology and a BA in Korean. Her family roots are very important to her, and her traditional dance troupe regularly does very well in competition. She is a very curious person who is always interested to learn new things!
Finally, we have said goodbye to a few folks over the past couple of years, as they move on to new stages in their lives and careers. Brittany Shelton left her position as Administrative Assistant to the Chair to transition to a similar position in a more corporate environment at Nationwide Insurance. Dr. Nasser Sadeghkhani left his position as assistant professor of teaching practice to take up a tenure-track position at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&T) in Greensboro. Dr. Lo-Bin Chang left his associate professor position to join Eisai near Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. Peter Craigmile left his professor position to move to New York City, where his is now a professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Hunter College, CUNY. Dr. Yunzhang Zhu left his associate professor position to move to Seattle Washington, where he joined Amazon. Dr. Matthew Pratola left his associate professor position to become a Professor of Statistics at Indiana University. We wish all of these colleagues the best as they continue their journeys, and hope that they will visit us often.