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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 Summer Institute, 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 CarevirtualGithub.io
    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 RegressionhybridUCF profile
    September 10, 2025Amanda Golbeck, PhD, FASAUniversity of Arkansas for Medical SciencesTaking Thousands of Lights and Helping Them to Shine BrightervirtualUAMS profile
    September 17, 2025Frank Harrell, PhD, FASAVanderbilt University Medical CenterGoal-Driven Flexible Bayesian DesignhybridStatistical Thinking
    September 24, 2025Jessica Utts, PhD, FASA, FIMS, FAAAS, FAPSUniversity of California, IrvineStatistical Literacy and Data Science EthicsvirtualUCI homepage
    October 1, 2025
    Cancelled    		Shyamal Peddada, PhD, FASANational Institute of Environmental Health SciencesA multi-modal study of microbiomes and metabolomes reveals a system-wide dysbiosis preceding HIV-1 infectionvirtualNIEHS profile
    October 8, 2025Weijie Su, PhD, FIMSWharton School / University of PennsylvaniaSome Statistical Opportunities for Large Language Modelsvirtualweiji-su.com
    October 15, 2025Huilin Li, PhDNew York UniversityTurning Biomedical Collaboration into Methodological Innovation: Insights from Microbiome and Multi-Omics ResearchvirtualNYU Langone profile
    October 22, 2025Yu Wang, PhDVanderbilt University Medical CenterstImage: A versatile framework for optimizing spatial transcriptomic analysis through customizable deep histology and location informed integrationhybridGoogle Scholar
    October 29, 2025Amy Willis, PhDUniversity of WashingtonNonparametric Identification and Estimation of Ratios of Multi-Category Means Under Preferential Sampling, With Applications to Microbial Differential AbundancevirtualUW profile
    November 5, 2025Gen Li, PhDUniversity of MichiganMulti-view regression analysis for multi-omics datavirtualU-M profile
    November 12, 2025Lingxiao Wang, PhDUniversity of VirginiaDesign and analysis of two-phase biomarker studies with binary outcomes using inverse probability weighting with calibrationvirtualUVa profile
    November 19, 2025postponedRichard McElreath,PhDMax Planck Institutevirtualhomepage, with many Statistical Rethinking resources
    December 3, 2025Mackenzie Stuenkel, PhDVanderbilt University Medical CenterThe Value of Infrastructure in Data Systems and Research: Building Strategic Research Frameworks for InnovationhybridLinkedIn profile
    December 10, 2025Shujie Ma, PhDUniversity of California, RiversideCausal Inference on Quantile Dose-response Functions via Local ReLU Least Squares WeightingvirtualGoogle site
    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 infectionvirtualNIEHS profile
    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 WeightvirtualUno1Lab website
    January 28, 2026Bill Majoros, PhDDuke UniversityStructured Modeling of Allelic-Specific Gene ExpressionvirtualBillMajoros.com
    February 4, 2026Brian Williamson, PhDKaiser Permanente Washington Health Research InstituteMarginal generalized raking for missing or mismeasured datavirtualKPWHRI profile
    February 11, 2026Didong Li, PhDUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillStatistics in the Age of AI: Theory, Methods, DatavirtualLi Lab

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

     

  • 2023

    The 2023 lightning talks 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.