Mentoring philosophy: Working with student collaborators is definitely my favorite part of working in academia. I constantly look for opportunities to learn how to become a more supportive and nurturing mentor. Each student is driven by different areas of statistics and their applications, so my main job is to help my student collaborators find their statistical passion. One of the strategies that I use is involving group members in applied collaborative projects in addition to methodological ones, so they can see how subject matter scientists use statistics in their work. I like experimenting with ways to maintain a warm and collegial group environment, where group members help each other and information and ideas flow within the group freely. All of the above are aspirations and getting closer to these goals continues to be a learning process for me.

Current Advisees (in alphabetical order)

• Thanasi Bakis, UCI Statistics PhD student
• Christian Bernal Zelaya, UCI Statistics PhD student
• Catalina Medina, UCI Statistics PhD student (co-advised with Mine Dogucu)
• Jessalyn Sebastian, UCI Statistics PhD student

Past Advisees

• PhD Students (in reverse chronological order), Math Genealogy page

  1. Isaac Goldstein, PhD, UCI Statistics (2024)
     Dissertation: Bayesian nowcasting of pathogen transmission dynamics
     Current position: Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Statistics, Stanford University
  2. Damon Bayer, PhD, UCI Statistics (2023)
     Dissertation: Inference and forecasting using infectious disease surveillance data
     Current position: Data Scientist, CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics
  3. Yushang Lai, PhD, UCI Mathematical, Computational and Systems Biology (2023), co-advised with John Lowengrub
     Dissertation: Hierarchical Bayesian modeling, model selection, and optimal experimental design for hematopoiesis dynamics
     Current position: Data Scientist, Walmart Global Tech
  4. Andy Magee, PhD, UW Biology (2021), co-advised with Eric Matsen
     Dissertation: Reliable and interpretable inference of evolutionary history using Bayesian phylogenetic approaches
     Current position: Data Scientist, CDC Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics
  5. Mingwei Tang, PhD, UW Statistics PhD (2019)
     Dissertation: Fitting stochastic epidemic models to multiple data types
     Current position: Research Data Scientist, Meta
  6. Amrit Dhar, PhD, UW Statistics (2019), co-advised with Eric Matsen
     Dissertation: Large-scale B cell receptor sequence analysis using phylogenetics and machine learning
     Current position: Machine Learning Scientist, Amazon
  7. Jim Faulkner, PhD, UW QERM (2019)
     Dissertation: Adaptive Bayesian nonparametric smoothing with Markov random fields and shrinkage priors
     Current position: Mathematical Statistician, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency
  8. Jon Fintzi, PhD, UW Biostatistics (2018), co-advised with Jon Wakefield
     Dissertation: Bayesian modeling of partially observed epidemic count data
     Current position: Mathematical Statistician, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
  9. Michael Karcher, PhD, UW Statistics (2018)
     Dissertation: Preferential sampling and model checking in phylodynamic inference
     Current position: Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, Muhlenberg College
  10. Jason Xu, PhD, UW Statistics (2016)
      Dissertation: Likelihood-based inference for partially observed multi-type Markov branching processes
      Current position: Assistant Professor of Statistical Science, Duke University
  11. Jan Irvahn, PhD, UW Statistics (2016)
      Dissertation: Phylogenetic stochastic mapping
      Current position: Statistician, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
  12. Amanda Koepke, PhD, UW Statistics (2015), co-advised with Ira Longini
      Dissertation: Predictive modeling of cholera outbreaks in Bangladesh
      Current position: Mathematical Statistician, National Institute of Standards and Technology
  13. Jane Lange, PhD, UW Biostatistics (2014)
      Dissertation: Latent continuous time Markov chains for partially-observed multistate disease processes
      Current position: Staff Scientist, Oregon Health & Science University
  14. Peter Chi, PhD, UW Biostatistics (2013)
      Dissertation: Problems in pedigrees and phylogenies
      Current position: Associate Professor of Statistics, Villanova University
  15. Julia Palacios, PhD, UW Statistics (2013)
      Dissertation: Bayesian nonparametric inference of effective population size trajectories from genomic data
      Current position: Associate Professor of Statistics and Biomedical Data Science, Stanford University
  16. Soyoung Ryu, PhD, UW Statistics (2011), co-advised with Dave Goodlett
      Dissertation: Statistical approaches to analyze mass spectrometry data
      Current posision: Associate Professor of Biostatistics, University of Nevada, Reno

• Postdoctoral Scholars (in reverse chronological order)

  1. Jamie Oaks, UW Biology NSF Biological Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow (2013-2016), co-mentored with Adam Leaché
     Current position: Associate Professor, Auburn University and Senior Manager, Adaptive Biotechnologies
  2. Charles Linkem, UW Biology NSF Biological Sciences Postdoctoral Fellow (2012-2015), co-mentored with Adam Leaché
     Current position: Director of Computational Biology, Adaptive Biotechnologies

• Research Assistants (in reverse chronological order)

  1. Jessica George, BS, UCI Data Science (2020)
     Research project: COVID-19 trends at UC Irvine and Orange County, CA
     Current position: Biostatistics PhD Student, University of Southern California
  2. Thanasi Bakis, MS, UCI Statistics (2020)
     Research project: COVID-19 trends at UC Irvine and Orange County, CA
     Current position: PhD Student, UCI Statistics Department
  3. Xiaoxiao Li, BS, UW Statistics (2016)
     Research project: Predicting seasonal human influenza evolution
     Current position: Data and Applied Scientist II at Azure AI
  4. Charles Doss, Graduate Research Assistant (2009-2010)
     Research project: Fitting birth-death processes to panel data
     Current position: Associate Professor at University of Minnesota
  5. Dustin Lennon, MS, UW Statistics (2010)
     Research project: Measuring microsatellite conservation with a phylogenetic birth-death model
     Current position: Statistical Consultant, Inferentialist, LLC

Last modified: October, 2024