Meta – Fall 2025

From the head

As we approach the holiday season, I want to extend my warmest wishes to you and your loved ones. Our alumni are an integral part of our department, and your continued connection helps shape the strong, collaborative community we value so deeply. This newsletter is more than an update; it’s a reflection of the exciting changes happening here and the shared pride we hope you feel in the accomplishments of our students, faculty, and the broader statistics community we’ve built together.

I am thrilled to share some transformative developments. This year marks a major milestone as we prepare to launch our first-ever undergraduate major in Data Science in Winter 2026. This historic step forward will provide students with a rigorous foundation in statistics combined with cutting-edge data science skills, equipping them to thrive in today’s data-driven world. Alongside this change, our department will officially become the Department of Statistics and Data Science starting Summer 2026, a name that reflects our evolving mission and growing impact.

To support these initiatives, we are expanding our faculty. We welcomed Dr. Zhirui Hu as an Assistant Professor this year, and I’m pleased to report that our national search for Assistant Professors of Teaching is nearing completion with promising candidates. In addition, we have launched a tenure-track search for an Assistant Professor to strengthen our data science program.

This year has also been a time of celebration for faculty achievements. Dr. Yanming Di and Dr. Yuan Jiang have been promoted to Full Professors, and Erin Howard and Dr. Ari Petrides Jimenez advanced to Senior Instructor I. Please join me in congratulating these outstanding educators and researchers for their accomplishments.

I also want to express my heartfelt gratitude for your generous support during Dam Proud Day. Thanks to your contributions, we funded travel for four graduate students to attend professional conferences—an invaluable experience that helps them grow academically and professionally. You’ll find their inspiring stories in this issue.

Thank you for being part of our journey. Your engagement and support make these accomplishments possible, and we look forward to continuing to build a strong, connected community with you.

Lan Xue
Department Head, Statistics

A warm welcome

New Assistant Professor Zhirui Hu joins the Department of Statistics from UC San Francisco, where she developed a computational method for annotating and mapping data as a bioinformatics fellow. She received a Ph.D. in statistics at Harvard before working in the UCSF Pollard Lab.

Hu develops advanced statistical and machine learning tools to tackle big biological questions, like how genes and traits evolve across species and how individual cells function. Her research focuses on developing AI-driven models to unravel gene regulation across species and diseases.

Learn more about our newest member

Congratulations!

Instructors Erin Howard and Aristides Petrides Jimenez were promoted to Senior Instructor I

Yanming Di and Yuan Jiang were promoted to Professors of Statistics

New research award supports data science

Lan Xue and Yuan Jiang received a three-year NSF grant to develop advanced statistical tools for analyzing longitudinal microbiome data. Their project, titled Flexible and Scalable Cluster Analysis of Longitudinal Microbiome Data to Define Functional Groups, will create flexible clustering methods to identify “functional groups” of microbes, improving understanding of both human and environmental health. The team will also release an open-access R package and training resources to support researchers and students working with complex microbiome datasets.

Recruiting across borders

To increase our department's diversity of talent, Yuan Jiang, co-director of the statistics graduate program traveled all the way to China to recruit prospective students. Jiang visited three universities; Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, Northeastern Normal University, and Dongbei University of Finance and Economics.

Research spotlights

Dr. Yanming Di, co-director of Graduate Studies in the Statistics Department, aids an interdisciplinary project that pairs statistics, robotics, AI, computer science, and crop science to modernize seed-purity testing for Oregon’s grass-seed industry.

OSU faculty are advancing river health, ecology, seaweed research and pest control through innovative SciRIS-supported projects, including statisticians Yuan Jiang and Lan Xue’s effort to develop new analytical tools for understanding interactions within complex ecological communities.

A banner year for Emily Palmer

Emily Palmer has achieved an impressive string of accomplishments this year, marking major milestones in both her research and academic recognition. After successfully completing her preliminary exam, the first part of Emily’s dissertation, A group penalization framework for detecting time-lagged microbiota-host associations (Palmer et al., 2025) was published in Frontiers in Genetics.

Emily was also selected for the Department of Statistics’ Jerome C. Li Award. This scholarship is given to the top Ph.D. student each year. She received the Dissertation Completion Award from the Office of Graduate Education and defended her work this summer. Congratulations, Dr. Palmer!

Alumni—Connect with statistics students through our new mentoring program!

For the 2025-26 academic year, we have introduced a new statistics alumni mentoring program. The Alumni Mentoring Program aims to pair current graduate students with statistics alumni. The alumni mentor will provide insights on how to succeed academically as well as how to perform well in the job market upon graduating. At the moment, we have 20 student-alumni pairs.

If you are interested in becoming an alumni mentor, please email statistics.office@oregonstate.edu so we can connect you with a student.

The time commitment for the program is a single one hour zoom meeting per term.

Make a difference

Inspired by these stories? With a few easy steps, you can create your legacy and transform the lives of future statisticians — while having a meaningful impact here in Oregon and around the world. Contact us today to learn more about giving through your will, trust or retirement plan.

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