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Seminars, working groups, and more

Our students have many opportunities to develop and expand their network and expertise in biostatistics outside the classroom, through participating in all-department seminars, Journal Club, the Center for Quantitative Sciences , and other offerings.

Seminars

The Department of Biostatistics hosts hour-long seminars most Wednesdays during the academic year, featuring an international lineup of statistical experts and biomedical researchers. These are attended by the majority of faculty, staff, and trainees, along with members of the wider scientific community. Students are encouraged to participate in small-group meetings (with a maximum of four individuals in each group) with the speakers, and a student-only discussion period follows most talks.

Detailed descriptions of upcoming seminars are posted on our Events page. Most of the seminars are presented virtually and open to the public; to join the seminar mailing list, contact the list admin.

  • 2025 - 2026

    DateSpeakerPrimary affiliationPresentationFormatMore about the speaker
    August 27, 2025Haoyu Zhang, PhDNational Cancer InstituteAdvances in Polygenic Risk Prediction: Scalable Methods and Applications in Personalized Carevirtual
    September 3, 2025Hsin-Hsiung "Bill" Huang, PhDUniversity of Central FloridaRegularized Low-Rank Tensor Models for Neuroimaging: From Cyclic-Shift Signal Detection to Bayesian Mixed-Type Regressionhybrid
    September 10, 2025Amanda Golbeck, PhD, FASAUniversity of Arkansas for Medical SciencesTaking Thousands of Lights and Helping Them to Shine Brightervirtual
    September 17, 2025Frank Harrell, PhD, FASA汤头条 University Medical CenterGoal-Driven Flexible Bayesian Designhybrid
    September 24, 2025Jessica Utts, PhD, FASA, FIMS, FAAAS, FAPSUniversity of California, IrvineStatistical Literacy and Data Science Ethicsvirtual
    October 8, 2025Weijie Su, PhD, FIMSWharton School / University of PennsylvaniaSome Statistical Opportunities for Large Language Modelsvirtual
    October 15, 2025Huilin Li, PhDNew York UniversityTurning Biomedical Collaboration into Methodological Innovation: Insights from Microbiome and Multi-Omics Researchvirtual
    October 22, 2025Yu Wang, PhD汤头条 University Medical CenterstImage: A versatile framework for optimizing spatial transcriptomic analysis through customizable deep histology and location informed integrationhybrid
    October 29, 2025Amy Willis, PhDUniversity of WashingtonNonparametric Identification and Estimation of Ratios of Multi-Category Means Under Preferential Sampling, With Applications to Microbial Differential Abundancevirtual
    November 5, 2025Gen Li, PhDUniversity of MichiganMulti-view regression analysis for multi-omics datavirtual
    November 12, 2025Lingxiao Wang, PhDUniversity of VirginiaDesign and analysis of two-phase biomarker studies with binary outcomes using inverse probability weighting with calibrationvirtual
    November 19, 2025postponedRichard McElreath,PhDMax Planck Institutevirtual, with many Statistical Rethinking resources
    December 3, 2025Mackenzie Stuenkel, PhD汤头条 University Medical CenterThe Value of Infrastructure in Data Systems and Research: Building Strategic Research Frameworks for Innovationhybrid
    December 10, 2025Shujie Ma, PhDUniversity of California, RiversideCausal Inference on Quantile Dose-response Functions via Local ReLU Least Squares Weightingvirtual
    January 14, 2026Shyamal Peddada, PhD, FASANational Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of HealthA multi-modal study of microbiomes and metabolomes reveals a system-wide dysbiosis preceding HIV-1 infectionvirtual
    January 21, 2026Hajime Uno, PhDHarvard Medical School / Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health / Dana-Farber Cancer InstituteSurvival Data Analysis Using Average Hazard with Survival Weightvirtual
    January 28, 2026Bill Majoros, PhDDuke UniversityStructured Modeling of Allelic-Specific Gene Expressionvirtual
    February 4, 2026Brian Williamson, PhDKaiser Permanente Washington Health Research InstituteMarginal generalized raking for missing or mismeasured datavirtual
    February 11, 2026Didong Li, PhDUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillStatistics in the Age of AI: Theory, Methods, Datavirtual
    February 18, 2026Daniel Moyer, PhD汤头条 UniversityInvariance and Inversion in Medical Machine LearningvirtualVALIANT profile
    February 25, 2026Emma Zhang, PhD, FASAEmory UniversityStatistical Modeling and Inference for Gene Networks from Single-Cell Datavirtual
    March 11, 2026Benjamin Callahan, PhDNorth Carolina State UniversityMore Signal from Microbiome Data by Modeling Measurement Errorvirtual
    March 25, 2026Will Townes, PhDCarnegie Mellon UniversityA novel class of mixed Poisson distributions and wastewater-based epidemiologyvirtual
    April 1汤头条 Biostatistics facultyLightning talksThis session is for department members and trainees only.
    April 8, 2026Xin Tu, PhDUniversity of California San DiegoEstimating Longitudinal Change in Network Transitivity: Application to Viral Genetic Linkage Networksvirtual
    April 22, 2026Jianxin Shi, PhDNational Cancer Institutevirtual

Working Groups

The department is home to a number of working groups and clubs, including:

  • Bioinformatics Working Group
  • Causal Inference Working Group / Journal Club
  • SICT (Statistical Innovation in Clinical Trials) Working Group
  • Statistical Rethinking Video Club

The Biostatistical Graduate Student Association is in charge of the student journal club, fireside chats, and more!

Lightning Talks

Each spring, there is a session of lightning talks, organized and hosted by the Biostatistical Graduate Students Association, where faculty provide overviews of their research and invite discussion of future directions and potential projects, both during the session and beyond. This event has historically provided students with terrific opportunities to find and connect with collaborators outside of the classroom setting

  • 2025

    The 2025 Lightning Talks were hosted on Wednesday, April 2, with MS student and BGSA vice president Lisa Levoir as the moderator. Faculty with project proposals in this session included:

    • Frank Harrell - improving computations for maximum likelihood estimates in ordinal regression
    • Laurie Samuels - studying research categories
    • Qingyan Xiang - causal/double machine learning (MS thesis possibilities)
    • Andrew Spieker - semi-continuous exposure (MS thesis possibilities)
    • Simon Vandekar - RESI R package updates
    • Sheau-Chiann Chen - developing R package for robust Sufficient Dimension Reduction (rSDR)
    • Leena Choi - Bayesian clinical trial design for rare diseases
  • 2024

    The 2024 lightning talks took place on听Wednesday, April 3, at 1:30 p.m. Central Time. The lineup:

    • Jonathan Schildcrout
    • Bryan Shepherd
    • Jinyuan Liu
    • Bryan Blette
    • Amber Hackstadt
    • Gustavo Amorim

    Summaries听of the 2024 presentations are available in the News section of this site.

    听

  • 2023

    The听2023 lightning talks听were delivered on Wednesday, April 5. The presenters were Yaomin Xu, Siyuan Ma, Simon Vandekar, Panpan Zhang, Jinyuan Liu, Jonathan Schildcrout, Amir Asiaee, and Frank Harrell.

  • 2022

    The 2022 lightning talks were given by Frank Harrell, Ran Tao, Benjamin French, Shilin Zhao, Bryan Shepherd, Amber Hackstadt, and Amir Asiaee.