Jing Cao, SDSS Program Chair, and Sarah Kalicin, SDSS Program Chair-Elect
The ninth annual Symposium on Data Science and Statistics is slated for April 28 – May 1 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. SDSS provides a unique opportunity for data scientists, computer scientists, and statisticians to come together and exchange ideas.
At SDSS 2026, there will be many ways to connect with colleagues and friends during short courses, receptions, breakfasts, and e-poster sessions. Students are especially encouraged to attend, with activities designed to help them meet one another and build professional networks. New this year, a dedicated mentoring lounge will allow for small group or 1:1 meet-ups that support early-career participants.On April 28, the following five short courses are planned:
- Modern Machine Learning with Bayesian Additive Regression Trees, led by Robert E. McCulloch of Arizona State University and Rodney Sparapani of the Medical College of Wisconsin
- Getting Started with Positron: A Next-Generation IDE for Data Science, led by Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel of Duke University
- Everyday Reproducibility, led by Gregory Hunt of William & Mary and Johann Gagnon-Bartsch of the University of Michigan
- Expanding the Statistician’s Toolkit: Building and Sharing Data Science Tools in R, led by Mehdi Maadooliat, Jaihee Choi, and Daniel Cirkovic of Marquette University
- Toward Trustworthy Statistical Inference with Black-Box AI Predictions, led by Jiwei Zhao of the University of Wisconsin-Madison
The conference sessions will start on April 29. Every morning, attendees will come together for breakfast, followed by sessions with speakers, including the following, who will expand their horizons:
On April 29, Lorin Crawford, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research, will give a talk titled “From More Data to More Signal: A Statistician’s Roadmap for Scaling AI in Single-Cell Biology.”
On April 30, a panel discussion titled “Statistical Thinking: A Critical Piece in the Age of AI” will be moderated by Karl Pazdernik of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and include panelists Frank Alexander of Argonne National Laboratory, Rui (Sammi) Tang of Astellas Pharmaceuticals, Jeff Morris of the University of Pennsylvania, and Xuming He of Washington University.
On May 1, Jeff Morris, the George S. Pepper Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, will give a talk titled, “Statistics and the AI Revolution, and Statistical-AI Generative Models for Regression Analysis of Dependent Complex Object Data.”
In addition, there will be two-part lightning sessions, during which each speaker gives a five-minute overview of their work followed by an e-poster session for a more in-depth discussion.
SDSS also offers sponsorship opportunities.
Milwaukee is a lively city on the shores of Lake Michigan with a mix of culture, food, and creativity. From world-class museums and historic neighborhoods to award-winning restaurants and craft breweries, there’s plenty to explore just outside the conference halls.
SDSS Program Committee
Program Chair, Jing Cao
Program Chair-Elect, Sarah Kalicin
Past Chair, Stephanie Shipp
Short Course Chairs, Ed Mirielli and Praveen Gupta
Activity & Outreach Chair, Rodney Sparapani
ASA Meeting Planner, Naomi Friedman
ASA Liaison, Donna LaLonde
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