Statistics

A postdoc program for health researchers interested in statistics and data science, run jointly by George Mason’s statistics and global and community health departments, with mentors from Mason and Inova Health, has developed from the ongoing partnership between Inova Health and George Mason’s Statistics Collaboration Core. Mohamad Bahij Moumneh, MD, and Jason F. Goldberg, MD, are the program’s standing inaugural members.

At the 2023 Joint Statistics Meeting, one of the largest statistics events in the world, George Mason’s statistics department teamed up with Georgetown’s data science department and George Washington’s statistics department to co-host the first Georges Reception. Students, alumni, faculty, and friends gathered to network with fellow DC area locals.

Professor of statistics Lily Wang is leading a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary team to find biomarkers for aging-related diseases from the latest biomedical imaging techniques. A program run by the NSF and NIH has awarded Wang’s team $1,199,772 for the study.

The American Statistical Association (ASA) Census Quality Indicators Taskforce selected assistant professor of statistics Jonathan Auerbach to independently review the 2020 census as part of a three-person research team. Ironically the major finding was what they didn't find -- evidence of malfeasance or wrongdoing.

The Department of Statistics is poised for major growth with new leadership, new hires, and new alliances. These include not only the regular statistics hires but also the Tech Talent Investment Pipeline, a cluster hire in computational systems biomedicine, potential joint positions with other departments, and organizational collaborations.

Inova Children’s Hospital, the Virginia Department of Health, and Mason Engineering joined forces last summer to conduct a COVID-19 antibody study to analyze the incidence of COVID-19 in Northern Virginia’s children.

Four seniors majoring in statistics––Emily Litzenberg, Kate Lang, Nate Mulugeta, and Shannon Connor––received an honorable mention for the best use of external data at the American Statistical Association’s (ASA) Fall Data Challenge 2020.

Mason Engineering researchers are joining forces with Inova Children’s Hospital for a project that will provide valuable data about the incidence of COVID-19 in children in Northern Virginia to school administrators and other decision-makers in the area.