Finding a Research Advisor / Forming a Doctoral or Masters Committee

Students are encouraged to begin thinking about their research interests as early as possible and to seek out faculty members who might serve on their doctoral committee (Ph.D.) or thesis committee (M.S., MASDS). Doctoral students are expected to have chosen a Faculty Adviser by the Fall of their second year and discuss with their faculty adviser who will be on their committee over the next quarters. After forming the committee, they should complete their University Oral Qualifying Examination by the end of their second year. Masters students should choose their Faculty Adviser and discuss with their faculty adviser who will be on your committee by the Fall of their second year.

To help with the selection of the Faculty Advisor (i.e., the Chair of their committee), the videos below give a brief introduction to the research areas and styles of the faculty. The same information and discussion with their Faculty Advisor will help with choosing the other committee members. Faculty love to talk about research and encourage students to approach them with questions such as: “What should I read to find out more about the areas you work in?”.

amini

Arash Ali Amini, Associate Professor

High-dimensional inference, machine learning, optimization, networks

cheng

Guang Cheng, Professor and Graduate Vice Chair

Trustworthy AI, Generative Data Science, Deep Learning Theory and Statistical Machine Learning

dai

Xiaowu Dai, Assistant Professor

Machine learning and economics, Statistical inference in dynamic systems, High-dimensional statistics, and Causal inference.


fletcher

Alyson (Allie) Fletcher, Associate Professor

Machine learning, Statistical inference for high-dimensional data with applications in neuroscience, signal processing, information theory


gould

Robert Gould, Senior Lecturer SOE and Undergraduate Vice Chair

Statistics education and Modeling longitudinal data


handcock

Mark S. Handcock, Distinguished Professor of Statistics

Stochastic modeling of social networks, Environmental and spatial statistics, Demography, Computational statistics, Survey sampling, and Epidemiology.


hazlett

Chad Hazlett, Associate Professor

Causal inference, high-dimensional regression and classification, applications in political science


Oscar Leong

Oscar Leong, Assistant Professor (Appointment is effective July 2024)

Machine learning, inverse problems, optimization, high-dimensional statistics, generative models


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li

Jingyi Jessica Li, Professor

Applied Statistics and Statistical Modeling, as well as their interface with Statistical Genomics, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology


Ker-Chau-Li

Ker-Chau Li, Distinguished Professor

Dimension reduction, data visualization, time series, images, and gene expression

padilla

Oscar Madrid Padilla, Assistant Professor

High dimensional statistics, Network estimation problems, Change point detection, Bayesian statistics, Quantile regression, and Graphical models.


mckinnon

Karen McKinnon, Assistant Professor

Spatial and environmental statistics, predictive modeling, applications to climate science


michailidis

George Michailidis, Professor

Analysis of high dimensional data, machine learning, network analytics, bioinformatics, visualization


montufar

Guido Montufar, Associate Professor

Deep learning, artificial neural networks, information geometry, algebraic statistics


schoenberg

Rick Schoenberg, Professor and Director of MAS Program

Point processes, Image analysis, Time series, and applications especially in seismology and fire ecology


wu

Ying Nian Wu, Professor

Statistical modeling and learning


xu

Hongquan Xu, Professor

Experimental design, functional linear model, computer experiment


zhou

Qing Zhou, Professor and Chair

Causal inference and Graphical models, High-dimensional statistics, Monte Carlo methods, Bioinformatics.


Yuhua Zhu

Yuhua Zhu, Assistant Professor (Appointment is effective July 2024)

Interface of machine learning and differential equations, Reinforcement learning, Collective Intelligence


There is information on more faculty in the faculty directory page.

Note to MASDS students: Any faculty listed could be your faculty advisor whether or not they will serve on the official committee or not. Please contact the MASDS Advisor for other questions.