Current Graduate Students
- Alan Gan (PhD, Statistics)
- Yue Ma (PhD, Statistics, co-advised with Steve Niezgoda)
- Eric Crislip (PhD, Statistics, co-advised with Mario Peruggia)
- Yingyu Cheng (PhD, Statistics)
- Jake Roberts (MS, Statistics)
Former Graduate Students
- Rui Zhang
- Yoonji Kim (Data Scientist, Lyft)
- James Matuk (Data Scientist, University of Pittsburgh)
- Xiao Zang (Principal Biostatistician, Novartis)
Prospective Graduate Students
My department’s graduate admissions process does not require establishing a research advisor in advance – our students take classes and get to know the faculty before deciding on advisors. Due to the volume of requests from prospective graduate students, I do not have the opportunity to respond to each inquiry individually.
Letter of Recommendation Policy
I receive a large number of requests for letters of recommendation for students’ graduate school applications. I view this as part of my job, and a great opportunity to contribute to student success. However, it is important to consider the following issues before requesting a letter both to increase the changes of success of the application, and to be mindful of prospective letter writers’ time:
- This page provides some general suggestions to students requesting letters
- I strongly recommend that students choose letter writers who have first-hand evidence of the skills/qualities being assessed in the application, such as research potential, leadership, or written/oral communication skills. Examples of letter writers who may be able to comment on things other than grades are internship/capstone project advisors, former employers, and instructors for classes with a project or presentation component. If the potential letter writer was an instructor who did not have any noteworthy interactions with the student, their letter may reflect only the student’s academic performance – moreover, if the course was not taken recently, then they may only be able to comment on the final grade, which is already available to the admissions officer from the transcript
- I suggest looking for early opportunities to interact with professionals who may serve as letter writers down the road. Examples of such opportunities include local data analysis competitions (our department hosts its annual ASA DataFest every spring, for instance)
- While it is up to the student how many applications they choose to submit, I personally ask that students provide a careful justification if the number of letters requested exceeds five. Applying to an excessively large number of programs may suggest that the student is unsure about what they would really like to do, and this is worth thinking about before requesting a big time-commitment from potential letter writers