The University of Mississippi Department of Mathematics hosted the 2026 Annual Conference and Business Meeting of the Alabama–Mississippi Chapter on March 2, bringing together faculty, students, and professionals from across both states for a day of research, networking, and statistical collaboration.
Duke University
Maria Tackett
From an early age, Maria Tackett felt a passion for math, particularly solving puzzle-like problems. Now an associate professor of the practice at Duke University, she mentors students and collaborates with them to reach their goals.
A Call for Thought
In this month’s Statistician’s View, David Banks of Duke University challenges the statistical community to take a hard look at our publication practices.
A Point of View: Duke University
As DataFest hosts, Maria Tackett and Alexander Fisher from Duke University share their reflections on how the event challenges students to think critically and work collaboratively under pressure.
Merlise A. Clyde
Growing up, Merlise Clyde loved science, math, and the outdoors but really had no idea about careers in mathematics, let alone statistics. She discovered statistics while at Oregon State University studying forestry ecology. There was no major in statistics then, but she took every statistics course she could fit into her degree. Clyde ultimately earned her PhD in statistics from the University of Minnesota. She is best known for her research in Bayesian model selection/model averaging with mixtures of g-priors (and the associated R package BAS); however, her greatest accomplishment has been in Bayesian nonparametric regression using Lévy processes for Lévy adaptive regression kernels.
Joyee Ghosh
Joyee Ghosh had to choose between taking a statistics or biology course in high school. Because the thought of dissecting frogs terrified her, she chose statistics. Today, she is an associate professor in the department of statistics and actuarial science at the University of Iowa. When students ask her for career advice, she tells them they should follow their heart, work hard, and take things as they come.
North Carolina Chapter Holds Recycled Poster Session, Social
The event allowed local statisticians a chance to gather, mingle, and learn about the statistical work being done by fellow statisticians in North Carolina.
Stories of Significance Highlight North Carolina Chapter’s Fall Dinner
Nearly 100 statisticians from the North Carolina ASA community gathered for the 2018 Fall Dinner November 30. The theme was “Stories of Significance.”
Dalene K. Stangl
As a first-generation college student, Dalene Stangl studied psychology and sociology at Iowa State University, but it was her research in the area of mental health that convinced her to pursue a PhD in statistics. Among her many achievements, she garnered four strategic initiative awards—one that kick-started the popular Celebrating Women in Statistics and Data Science conference.
Dawn Woodard
After receiving tenure at Cornell, Dawn Woodard went on sabbatical at Microsoft Research, where she created travel time prediction methods for use in Bing Maps. She then transitioned to a role at Uber, building and leading their Marketplace Optimization Data Science organization, which is one of the premier data science teams at Uber and includes specialists in operations research, economics, statistics, and machine learning.