Kansas State University

Greetings friends and colleagues, and welcome to this year’s Departmental Newsletter. This past year the department hosted its 29^th consecutive Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture under the capable direction of John Boyer. As John and Lora Boyer transition to spending more time on family land in Nebraska, leading the conference was becoming more challenging for John. Fortunately, Dallas Johnson stepped in and will lead next year’s conference, Continue reading “From Dr. Gary Gadbury, Department Head” →

The Department of Statistics held its 29th annual (!!!) Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture on April 23rd, 24th and 25th of this year.  The keynote speaker and workshop leader this year was Dr. David Banks of Duke University.  Dr. Banks’ day-long workshop was entitled “Statistical and Machine Learning” and his keynote address was on “Statistical Issues for Agent-Based Models”.   Continue reading “2017 Ag Stat Conference” →

Thanks to the generosity of our alumni, nearly $45,000 in scholarships were given out this past spring and will be awarded over the next academic year.

Lolafaye Coyne Statistics Graduate Scholarship

Four students shared the Lolafaye Coyne Statistics Graduate Scholarship. The funds provided a research stipend over the summer so that students couldfocus their efforts on their research versus other duties such as teaching. The winners are Yinhao Du, Nelson Walker, Haoyu Zhang, and Huaiyu Zhang.

Yinhao Du is from Dalian, China. As a PhD graduate student, she is very interested and curious about science. In particular, she loves studying statistics because it provides a way to discover scientific phenomenon from data. Her research interest is statistical machine learning for high dimensional data and large scale optimization in bioinformatics studies. She is working on identification of Continue reading “Scholarship Recipients” →

The Department of Statistics has learned that Jim Hess, who was a faculty member in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, has died after a year-long battle with cancer.  Jim did his undergraduate work at the University of Missouri-Rolla (now Missouri University of Science and Technology) and his graduate work at Southern Methodist University.  After teaching at K-State, Jim was a statistician on the technical staff of the DuPont Corporation for 15 years, Continue reading “Former Faculty Member Jim Hess has Passed Away” →

Welcome to the Alumni News column written by Dr. John Boyer, Professor Emeritus and former department head (2001-08). This column is his opportunity to communicate with graduates and friends of the department; a task he enjoys thoroughly.  He hopes that all graduates will email him, jboyer@ksu.edu, news pieces that they would like to see included in the newsletter. Don’t hesitate to email John any time, even to just say “hello”.  Continue reading “Alumni News (2017)” →

Supporters of the Statistics Department provide crucial sources of funds to allow department leaders to respond to emerging opportunities, as well as ongoing needs that are not fully funded through state sources. Gifts this past year (July 1, 2016, to June 30, 2017) sustain excellence in this department. If you have any questions about this honor roll or you would like more information about other ways to support our department, please contact Emily Mahoney, KSU Foundation, 800-432-1578 or 785-532-7980, email: emilym@found.ksu.edu.

Thank you to the following donors: Continue reading “2017 Honor Roll of Giving” →

Greetings friends and colleagues and welcome to this year’s Departmental Newsletter. Substantial changes and events occurred in the department over the past year. Details of these will follow but include three new tenure-track faculty who joined us in August 2015, another to join us this August, two retirements, a new name for our undergraduate degrees, the 28^th year of our annual conference, the awarding of over $25,000 in scholarships to students, a newly named K-State Alumni Fellow who is one of our own statistics alumni, and the annual alumni dinner at the JSMs. Continue reading “From the Department Head, Gary Gadbury (2016)” →

In January of 2016 the department held a half day retreat that focused on enhancing the undergraduate program, which is one priority in the department’s K-State 2025 objectives. The retreat was facilitated by an external human systems consultant who was on contract with K-State. Many ideas were discussed and objectives and tasks delineated. One item of discussion was the visibility of the department’s undergraduate program in statistics across the state. Continue reading “Renaming the BS/BA Degree” →

The annual Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture was held May 1 – 3, 2016 at the Hilton Garden Inn Conference Center in Manhattan. The first day was a one day workshop led by Dr. Ralph O’Brien from Case Western Reserve University. The workshop was titled, “Additions and Upgrades in our Everyday Statistical Toolbox” and it had over 50 attendees. Dr. O’Brien also gave the keynote address to over 100 attendees who attended the following two day conference. John Boyer served as the Program Chair for the conference and was assisted by Jo Ann Blackburn, Nick Bloedow, and graduate student assistants. The Department is grateful to John for his very capable leadership in seeing the conference through its 28^th consecutive year.