UW-Madison Department of Statistics

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UW-Madison Department of Statistics

The Statistics Department at the University of Wisconsin - Madison

The Statistics Department at the University of Wisconsin - Madison is home to 27 faculty, 11 teaching staff, over 100 graduate students and over 700 undergraduate majors in Statistics and Data Science.

05/26/2026

Associate Professor Jiwei Zhao has been named a 2026 Fellow of the American Statistical Association! Fewer than 1% of ASA members are named as Fellows each year, honoring their impactful contributions to the field.

Zhao's research focuses on statistical methods and machine learning techniques to analyze data with massive structures in biomedical studies. He holds a joint appointment in the departments of Statistics and Biostatistics and Medical Informatics.

Congratulations, Professor Zhao!

https://ow.ly/3tCh50Z4f0P

05/07/2026

Hermann Habermann MS’70, PhD’75, the former chief statistician of the United States whose work has shaped how nations understand their people and economies, is a 2026 CDIS Distinguished Achievement Award honoree.

From the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison to the highest levels of federal and international statistics, Habermann helped build systems that support informed decision‑making. "Federal statistics are the lifeblood of democracy — reliable, unbiased information for people to make decisions," he said.

Celebrate Hermann Habermann’s remarkable career and learn more about his global impact: https://ow.ly/mXoK50YQN6B

05/05/2026

Alan Agresti MS’70, PhD’72, a renowned statistician, influential author, and professor emeritus at the University of Florida, has been named a 2026 CDIS Distinguished Achievement Award recipient.

Agresti’s work in categorical data analysis reshaped an entire area of statistics, influencing disciplines from social science to medicine.

Reflecting on the reach of his field, he notes: "Statistics is useful in so many areas. No matter what your discipline or interest is, data can answer really interesting questions."

Learn more about Alan Agresti’s contributions and legacy: https://ow.ly/hp2y50YQN05

04/30/2026

José Ramírez MS’85, PhD’89 — collaborative statistician and industry leader whose work spans semiconductors, engineering, and cutting‑edge cancer therapies — is a deserving 2026 CDIS Distinguished Achievement Award recipient.

Rooted in the mentorship of Professor George Box, our department's founder, Ramírez built a career through effective partnership and applied impact. His philosophy captures that approach: Statisticians "need to be collaborators, equal and strategic partners to the people we work with," he said.

Read more about José Ramírez’s contributions across science and industry: https://ow.ly/C5o250YQMWY

04/16/2026

🧬During her PhD program over a decade ago, Claudia Solís-Lemus PhD'15 attended a lecture by Professor Bret Larget, showing how probability models could uncover new patterns in the evolution of life, using DNA as data.

"Lightning hit my brain," she said. That moment set her career on a course toward pushing the frontiers of statistical phylogenetics — the application of cutting-edge statistical and computing tools to reconstruct what biologists call the Tree of Life.

Today, Solís-Lemus leads a lab at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, where she and her students, many of them from CDIS programs, collaborate with scientists across campus and beyond. In these collaborations, they build richer statistical models and accessible coding packages that can enable breakthroughs with real-world public health implications.

"Our goal is to make these models usable at the scale biologists actually need," PhD student Nathan Kolbow, a member of the lab, said.

Read more about the Solís-Lemus lab: https://ow.ly/pKpJ50YKsLQ

04/14/2026

Happy Day of the Badger, Statistics community!

Today and tomorrow, alumni and friends of our department have a chance to give back (in any amount) to support hands-on learning and career-shaping opportunities for our students.

This year, with 50 gifts on Day of the Badger, we unlock a generous $5,000 matching gift from Hermann and Joan Habermann to empower student success.

You can give back between now and 5 p.m. on Wednesday, April 15.

🔗Support the next generation of data-driven leaders: https://dayofthebadger.org/campaign/statistics/

03/26/2026

🦠Interested in data science and the microbiome? Save the date for the 2026 Microbiome Symposium, happening May 26 at the Discovery Building!

Assistant Professor Kris Sankaran is one of the featured speakers at the event, alongside researchers from the fields of microbiology, animal and dairy Sciences, biochemistry and more.

This year’s theme: innovative research on the gut–brain axis.

→Register of submit an abstract for the Microbiome Symposium: https://ow.ly/xB4k50Yzgel

The event is sponsored by Wisconsin Institute for Discovery and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF).

03/16/2026

🎉 Join us in congratulating Statistics PhD student Cameron Jones!

Cameron has been selected for UW–Madison’s Advanced Achievement in Teaching Award, one of the campus’s highest honors for teaching assistants. Chosen from a competitive pool of nominees, he was recognized for his exceptional contributions to undergraduate learning and his leadership across the L&S TA Training & Support Team.

Since joining the department in 2022, Cameron has served as a TA, LSA, and now a campus‑wide teaching mentor, reflecting a deep commitment to student success at the heart of our program. He will be honored alongside other campus-wide TA Award winners at an April 7 ceremony in Memorial Union. Congratulations, Cameron!

Learn more about the Campus-wide TA Awards: https://ow.ly/R01H50YuM0H

03/10/2026

🏈 A student and a recent alum of University of Wisconsin-Madison recently took the stage at one of the most prestigious venues in professional football — not as players, but as data scientists.

Jack Sullivan ’25, who recently completed a degree in Data Science and Economics, and Shekhar Shah x’27, a Computer Sciences and Statistics double major, were named finalists in the 2026 NFL Big Data Bowl, earning a $9,000 prize and an invitation to present their work live at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis.

Their project, "Path Against the Pass," introduced a new metric for evaluating how defenders close space after the ball is thrown. Huge congratulations to Jack, Shekhar, faculty advisor Assistant Professor Sameer Deshpande, and the whole UW–Madison Sports Analytics Club for continuing to push what's possible with sports data.

🔗More: https://ow.ly/Y9o650YrmQS

03/09/2026

Join us this Thursday, March 12, in Morgridge Hall's 7th floor Seminar Hub as we welcome Ji Zhu, Chair and Susan A. Murphy Collegiate Professor of Statistics at the University of Michigan.

Professor Zhu's seminar is entitled "Modeling Non-Uniform Hypergraphs Using Determinantal Point Processes" and will take place at 1 p.m. We hope to see you there!

More details and abstract: https://ow.ly/OM2M50Yrkal

03/04/2026

Teaching Faculty John Gillett has shaped how thousands of students encounter machine learning and data science at UW–Madison, bringing clarity and a sense of humor to complex technical subjects.

His influence runs through the Statistics curriculum, from R programming to high‑throughput computing to the popular machine learning course he teaches in Morgridge Hall today. In the age of generative AI, Gillett—like so many educators around the country—is rethinking and adapting how to structure courses and evaluate student learning.

💬“Students should use AI, but they should be striving for understanding. Never accept a black‑box answer," he said.

Read about how Gillett is preparing future data scientists for a rapidly changing world: https://ow.ly/6eY450Yp9wb

Address

1205 University Avenue
Madison, WI
53706

Telephone

+16082622598

Website

http://www.stat.wisc.edu/

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