New Faculty
Wei-Wen Hsu will join us from Michigan State University, where he has been working as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics under Dr. David Todem. Prior to that, he earned his doctorate in 2011 at Michigan State under the direction of Dr. David Todem and Dr. Yuehua Cui. His dissertation was titled “Tests of Homogeneity in Two-component Mixture Models.” His current research interests include hypothesis testing, longitudinal and correlated data analysis, categorical data analysis, and hierarchical models. Wei-Wen is originally from Taiwan. He received his bachelor’s degree from Tamkang University and his master’s degree from National Taipei University.
Retirements
Pam Schierer retired from the department in March. She began working at K-State in 1984 in Facilities and moved to our department in 1993. She has one son, one grandson, and a step-granddaughter. So far, Pam has been using her retirement to help her mother move, but she has plans to spend time travelling. She recently acquired a new Boston Terrier puppy.
New Department Head
The statistics department will have a new department head, Dr. Gary Gadbury, beginning in July of 2013. Gary joined the department in 2007, arriving from the Missouri University of Science and Technology. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University in electrical engineering. He then spent eight years working for IBM before earning a master’s degree from the University of Colorado at Denver and a PhD in statistics from Colorado State University.
At K-State, Gary has taught both graduate and undergraduate courses, supervised many graduate students, and conducted a broad research program. He has also been co-director of the graduate program for the department. Gary sees the department being a strong participant in the K-State 2025 plan, saying that “many opportunities for focused research expansion that were identified by the research themes committee as part of the K-State 2025 vision play to the strengths of a strong and vibrant statistics department.”
Gary replaces Dr. Jim Neill who has been department head since 2008. Gary states that his “transition to head will be made much smoother due to Jim’s effective leadership and his disciplined approach to the job. I have appreciated his willingness to meet with me extensively to discuss the ups and downs of the position and techniques to focus on the ups.”
Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture
The Department hosted the 25th Annual Conference on Applied Statistics in Agriculture April 28-30, with Dr. Kevin Wright from Pioneer Hi-Bred DuPont giving the workshop and keynote address. Dr. Wright’s workshop (attended by 55 people) was titled “Statistical Graphics in Agriculture,” and the keynote address was “Show Me the Variation.” With over 100 people attending, the conference was held this year at the new Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Manhattan. A reception honoring the 25th conference was held at the new Flint Hills Discovery Center, an exciting addition to Manhattan and, as traditional, Monday night saw the Kansas Country Line Dance on an expanded dance floor. Plans for next year include Dr. Gustavo de Los Campos, Department of Biostatistics, University of Alabama at Birmingham who will focus on genomic selection in agriculture.