Emily Luetschwager, a 2021 CSU graduate and statistics major, was one of 10 posters recognized in the ASA’s Statistical Significance Poster Competition. The competition consists of submitting a one-page illustration of the value of statistics to society with the objective of communicating to a layperson how the statistical solution to a problem would help inform decision making in specific sectors. Emly’s poster, titled “Statistics and the Environment: Detecting Natural Gas Leaks”, outlined how statistical methods help detect and find natural gas leaks with mobile sensors. Emily’s poster was awarded Honorable Mention. Congratulations, Emily!

Glenn Swanson, a 2021 MAS graduate student won first place in the Harmonized Pediatric Traumatic Brain Injury Hackathon put on by the University of Colorado School of Medicine. To build her models, Glenn kept the mentality of “keep it parsimonious and interpretable” – something that has stuck with her since taking STAA 551 – for both her linear model and logistic regression equations. In the end her models were selected for their “performance, simplicity, and transferability in the healthcare setting”. Congratulations Glenn!

Ryan Volkert and Dawson Eliason both followed a unique opportunity to be among the first class to graduate from Colorado State University’s Data Science major in the College of Natural Sciences, an achievement that uniquely positions them for a range of possibilities in the professional world. Read the full article here.

Emily Luetschwager earned 3rd place at the Celebrate Undergraduate Research and Creativity Showcase. Congratulations Emily!

Graduate student Daniel Mork has been appointed to the Council for Emerging and New Statisticians (CENS) for the Eastern North American Region (ENAR) of the International Biometrics Society. CENS works with the professional society to better serve early career members. The Council is responsible for developing networking; career development; and diversity, equity, and inclusion events. Dan will serve a two-year term of CENS. Congratulations Dan!

See the full list of award winners here.

Julia Sharp was named the Outstanding Mentor Award winner by the American Statistical Association’s Section on Statistical Consulting. See website here. Congratulations Julia!

Assistant Professor Ander Wilson has received a new grant to study the effects of maternal air pollution exposure on birth outcomes. Dr. Wilson is part of a team with researchers at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the Danish Cancer Society that received the award from the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences. The CSU team will develop new statistical and interpretable machine learning methods as part of the collaboration. These new methods will allow researchers to understand who is most susceptible to air pollution and shed light on the biological mechanisms by which air pollution effects fetal development.

This year the Colorado State University Department of Statistics is celebrating its 50^th anniversary. It is also the 60^th anniversary of its Ph.D. program and the Franklin A. Graybill Statistics and Data Science Laboratory (Stat Lab) – marking six decades of world-class education, research, service, and interdisciplinary support of the CSU community through powerful application of foundational science. Read full article here.

Zach Weller, Assistant Professor in the Statistics Department, helped to publish a paper that estimates methane leakage from local natural gas distribution systems. The EPA has shown interest in potentially using the methodology to update its GHG inventory.

Ander Wilson, Assistant Professor in the Statistics department, was recently recognized as one of the authors of a paper which received the Best Environmental Epidemiology Paper Award. The paper is titled Acute Air Pollution Exposure and the Risk of Violent Behavior in the United States by Jesse D Berman, Jesse Burkhardt,  Jude Bayham, Ellison Carter, and Ander Wilson. See the paper here (scroll down to the BEEP Award). Congratulations Ander!

Statistics PhD Student Daniel Mork won the College of Natural Sciences Outstanding Scholar Award. Dan was one of four awardees from the College of Natural Sciences at the 2020 Graduate Student Showcase. Daniel presented his research that focuses on developing new statistical methods to estimate how maternal exposures to environmental chemicals during pregnancy influence birth outcomes. This is joint work with his thesis advisor Ander Wilson.

Statistic Department’s Ben Prytherch and Professor Matt Ross (Ecosystem Science and Sustainability) received a $20,000 Digital Learning Initiative grant from the Provost’s office to develop three 1-credit, online delivered, freely accessible R courses. The courses are currently being developed by Statistics students Alex Fout, Connor Gibbs, and Kathleen Wendt (PhD student in HDFS). The purpose is to serve students and faculty across the university who are teaching or taking classes that involve data analysis using R. They found that many instructors have been teaching R to their students as a component of their courses. This creates extra work for instructors and a steeper learning curve for students. These courses will allow faculty to direct their students to a high-quality set of training materials that will be accessible at any time, regardless of whether students are enrolled, and will free up time in their own classes to teach subject matter instead of teaching coding.

Colorado State University has a long history of investigating infectious disease outbreaks and is known for research exploring the complex interplay of pathogens, disease vectors, and the ecosystems in which transmissions occur. CSU is focused on the translation of those findings into practical solutions used by farmers, pet owners, and patients. Read more here.

Training students in the art of effective statistical collaboration is essential for their applied statistics education. Challenging situations can arise in collaborations that are necessary to discuss before they occur. Julia Sharp (CSU Associate Professor), Emily Griffith (NCSU Research Associate Professor), and Megan Higgs (Critical Inference LLC and CSU Alumni), with help from Ann Hess (CSU Associate Professor), received support from the American Statistical Association Member Initiative program to create a set of 10 short videos illustrating challenging and salient topics of communication for training in statistical collaboration. Scenarios portrayed in the videos convey realistic statistical collaboration encounters.  The 10 videos and accompanying materials can be used in training future statistical collaborators.  The videos can be found here.

Statistics Instructor and Advisor Ben Prytherch, has started the CSU Statistics Book Club! The club started in January 2019, they read and discuss interesting topics from the world of data analysis and statistics that might not be emphasized in a stats class. Their first book was Deborah Mayo’s “Statistical Inference as Severe Testing”. In fall 2019, the club read Alex Reinhart’s “Statistics Done Wrong: The Woefully Complete Guide”. For spring 2020, they are reading Judea Pearl’s “The Book of Why”. The book club is open to anyone! If you have questions about the group, or if you want to join, send an email to ben.prytherch@colostate.edu. You can also learn more by checking out the CSU Statistics Book Club website, here. Happy reading!

Haonan Wang has been on the forefront of statistical analysis for nearly 20 years. He is well known in the statistics world for a variety of research areas, but his most innovative work is referred to as object-oriented data analysis. Read more…