Department of Statistics - Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences

Department of Statistics - Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences

Zhu Wins 2017 Newcomb Graduate Award in Statistics

Graduate statistics student Shuying Zhu is the recipient of the 2017 Robert L. Newcomb Memorial Endowed Graduate Award, which aims to provide statistical support to researchers and advance the careers of graduate students in the Donald Bren School of ICS. Zhu previously studied chemical engineering in China, but she found statistics to be “useful and interesting.” A friend who studied at UC Irvine recommended the statistics program, so Zhu looked into it and realized it was a good program. She says Irvine is a nice place, and in her free time she enjoys playing badminton and tennis. She is interested in applied statistics and appreciates having the chance to learn. She plans to apply for a Ph.D. program and wants to start a career in academia. Zhu was “very surprised and grateful” to learn she had received the Newcomb award.

Alexandra Peterson Named Outstanding TA in Statistics

The 2017 Outstanding TA Award in Statistics went to Alexandra Peterson, a third-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics. According to Peterson, being a good TA requires more than just a solid understanding of the course material. TAs should also be able to “provide several different understandable explanations for the students,” she says. Peterson adds that “it is also important to seem approachable so that students feel comfortable asking questions.”

Brandon Berman received Honorable Mention.

UCI News: “UCI neurobiologists aim to identify biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease” (Dan Gillen mentioned)

With $3.8 million in support from the National Institute on Aging, University of California, Irvine neurobiologists are working to identify the early indicators of dementia in older adults as disease-related brain plaques accumulate but before symptoms can be observed. The researchers are developing sophisticated methods using brain imaging technology to understand the mechanisms of Alzheimer’s disease and predict its onset before any outward manifestations. If successful, their work will pave the way for effective preventive treatments that will substantially increase quality of life for patients and reduce the burden on families and the healthcare system.

Read the full story at UCI News.

UCI’s data science program ranked 18th in nation by BCSS

Best Computer Science Schools (BCSS), a leading authority on computer science, tech education and college rankings, has released a new ranking of the 35 Best Big Data Degrees for 2017 in which UCI was ranked as having the 18th best data science bachelor’s degree program in the nation. The ranking highlights the growth and impact of UCI’s B.S. program in data science, which is housed in the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences. The data science bachelor’s has a dual emphasis on the principles of both statistics and computer science, with foundational training in statistical and mathematical aspects of data analysis, as well as in the broad principles of computer science (including algorithms, data structures, data management and machine learning).
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Mazmanian, Regan and Shahbaba appointed DECADE Graduate Faculty Mentors

The UCI Office of Inclusive Excellence (OIE) has appointed ICS professors Melissa Mazmanian, Amelia Regan and Babak Shahbaba to serve as DECADE (Diverse Educational Community and Doctoral Experience) Graduate Faculty Mentors. Mazmanian will serve as a mentor for the graduate program in informatics, Shahbaba will be the mentor for the graduate program in statistics; and Regan will serve as a mentor for the graduate programs in computer science, network systems and transportation science. They each will serve two-year terms that started in July.
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2017 ICS Dean’s Award Winners

Five accomplished ICS faculty are awarded for their innovative research, exemplar service, student mentorship and exceptional teaching skills.

Congratulations to the 2016-2017 recipients of the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences Dean’s Awards, where accomplished ICS faculty are awarded for their innovative research, exemplar service, student mentorship and exceptional teaching skills. Recipients are peer- and self-nominated, garnering a certificate and a $500 discretionary award for their achievement.
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Ph.D. Students Gao and Cruz receive ASA paper awards

Congratulations to Statistics Ph.D. students Xu Gao and Maricela Cruz who both recently received best paper awards from the American Statistical Association (ASA). Gao was recognized for his paper, “Evolving State-Space Models with Applications to Local Field Potentials.” Cruz was recognized for her paper on healthcare data titled, “A robust interrupted time series model for analyzing complex healthcare intervention data.” They will have the opportunity to present their papers at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM 2017) in August 2017.

Gao recently won the Eastern North American Region (ENAR) International Biometrics Society’s Distinguished Student Paper Award competition in January 2017., while Cruz is a fellow of the prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRF).

Ombao, UCI Space-Time Modeling Group contribute to new Handbook of Neuroimaging Data Analysis

Several members of the UC Irvine Space-Time Modeling Group contributed to the recent release of the Handbook of Neuroimaging Data Analysis, which was published in November 2016 by Chapman and Hall/CRC. Statistics Professor and American Statistical Association Fellow Hernando Ombao served as one of the book’s editors, while Chee-Ming Ting, Carolina Euan, Lechuan Hu, Yuxiao Wang and Anna Schroeder were contributing co-authors for the 662-page handbook. In addition to Ombao, the handbook’s other editors were Martin Lindquist form Johns Hopkins University, Wesley Thompson from UC San Diego, and John Aston from the University of Cambridge.
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