Colorado State University

September 18-20, 2023, our department will host a workshop on complex environmental data. Its aim is to provide researchers in  Bayesian, environmental and ecological statistics with a venue to share cutting-edge advances and spark deeper knowledge gains. The workshop will facilitate  the transfer of knowledge between research sub-communities, fostering collaboration, and encourage advances from the wider community of researchers in Bayesian analysis of complex datasets to percolate into the environmental domain. Details are available at https://statistics.colostate.edu/envibayes-workshop/

Matt Koslovsky (PI) received NSF grant “Bayesian Sparse Dirichlet-Multinomial Models for Discovering Latent Structure in High-Dimensional Compositional Count Data” funded by the Division of Mathematical Sciences program “Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences.” Motivated by data generated by high-throughput sequencing technology in omics research, this research project will develop a novel sparse Dirichlet-multinomial (sDM) model that simultaneously accommodates potential zero inflation in multivariate compositional count data while estimating compositional probabilities. Extensions of the sDM modeling framework will be investigated for high-dimensional variable selection and clustering problems, and user-friendly software will be made publicly available. Graduate students will receive educational and professional training and mentoring.

In recognition of his contributions to statistics, Professor Piotr Kokoszka received the Neyman Medal from the Polish Statistical Association in a ceremony in Warsaw, Poland. The ceremony took place in July during the annual conference of the Central Statistical Office of Poland. It was followed by a plenary lecture. The medal was established in 2012 to commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of the association and is awarded annually.

Jerzy Neyman was one of the founders of modern statistics and is best known for the introduction of the concepts of the confidence interval and stratified sampling and for his contributions to the theory of significance tests. After emigrating to the United States, he established the UC Berkley Department of Statistics where he worked until his retirement.

Statistics professor Dan Cooley was recently featured on the Carry the Two Podcast, where he discussed using extreme value analysis to model rare weather events. In the episode, Dan discusses how his work can help explain the changing frequency and severity of wildfires in Colorado and how climate change might be playing a key role. You can listen here.

Graduate student Sierra Pugh has won a Best Student Paper award by the Health Policy Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association for her paper, “A Hierarchical Bayesian Model for Estimating Age-Specific COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rates in Developing Countries.” Sierra will present her work at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Toronto this August. Her paper is a joint work with her mentor, Dr. Bailey Fosdick. Congratulations, Sierra!

Statistics graduate student Danielle Demateis has been named a Sustainability Leadership Fellow for the 2023-2024 academic year. She will participate in the leadership program through the School of Global Environmental Sustainability at CSU. Her work focuses on understanding the environmental factors that influence health. Read more here.

Professor Dan Cooley has been elected as a  Fellow of the American Statistical Association. Every year, this honor is bestowed on up to one one-third of one percent of the total association membership. Professor Cooley has been elected in recognition of leadership and work in extreme value theory and modeling of multivariate extremes, for substantive contributions to the atmospheric and environmental sciences, and for distinguished statistics leadership on committees addressing climate change.

In addition to the election as an ASA Fellow, Professor Cooley received the 2023 ENVR Distinguished Achievement Award from the Environmental Statistics section of the ASA. This award is given to one or two researchers every year. Professor Cooley was recognized for methodological innovation in the field of extreme value analysis, especially for pioneering work in spatial extremes; for leadership in advancing research that bridges the domains of statistics and climate science and for exemplary outreach and mentoring activities.