News

At the 2023 Joint Statistics Meeting, one of the largest statistics events in the world, George Mason’s statistics department teamed up with Georgetown’s data science department and George Washington’s statistics department to co-host the first Georges Reception. Students, alumni, faculty, and friends gathered to network with fellow DC area locals.

Professor of statistics Lily Wang is leading a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary team to find biomarkers for aging-related diseases from the latest biomedical imaging techniques. A program run by the NSF and NIH has awarded Wang’s team $1,199,772 for the study.

As term associate professor of statistics, Kenneth Strazzeri stays busy teaching about 300 students each semester. Beyond his passion for teaching, Strazzeri discovered two new interests in recent years: running and biking. This hobby is now his major mode of transportation, as well: commuting to Mason by bike has offered Strazzeri motivation and an opportunity to improve as an athlete.

Statistics students and staff received recognition for their research work at a poster competition during the department's 30th milestone event in March.

As one of the newest and youngest professors to join the Department of Statistics, Nicholas Rios brings a passion for teaching and learning as much from his students as they learn from him.

Four of the twelve Mason faculty members being honored with Presidential Awards for Faculty Excellence come from the College of Engineering and Computing. They include Giorgio Ascoli, Zhisheng Yan, Jonathan Auerbach, and Shvetha Soundararajan.

The George Mason University Department of Statistics celebrated 30 years of teaching, research, and collaboration in March with the Conference on Evolving Statistical Data Science. Attendees came together for two days of exciting panel talks and networking.

PhD student Zhenyi Huang will embark on his COVES Fellowship this summer, applying his statistics expertise to help foster relationships between engineering and the Virginia state government.

A biostatistics graduate student spearheaded a weather station installation, to monitor the cherry trees at Mason Pond and study climate change.

Mason graduate student’s cherry blossom monitoring research uses Mason as a living lab to assess how climate change affects the bloom date of cherry blossom trees on the Fairfax Campus.

Last year, students at George Mason University joined contestants from around the world to predict the peak bloom date of cherry trees at  four global locations. The international Cherry Blossom Prediction Competition was a huge success and is gaining traction during its second annual run. 

The administrative team in the Department of Statistics at Mason receives commendations for their work.