• Associate Professor Mirjam Moerbeek from the Department of Methods and Statistics at Utrecht University in The Netherlands will visit Weng Kee Wong from February 18th-March 1st, 2013. Her research focus is on statistical power analysis and optimal (experimental) design, especially for trials with multilevel, longitudinal or discrete-time survival endpoints.

• The Department of Biostatistics would like to give a warm welcome to Anton Westveld who will be visiting for the month of January 2013.
  Anton Westveld is an assistant professor in statistics at the University of Canberra, Australia. He is also an associate of the University of Arizona with the Statistics Laboratory at the Bio5 Institute and the Statistics GIDP. Anton received his PhD in Statistics from the Statistics Department at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he was an active member in the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences. His research interests include Bayesian methodology and theory, statistical methods for interaction/relational data (networks, game theory), and statistical applications in the social (economics, political science, public policy), environmental, and biological sciences.

• On December 6, 2012, Weng Kee Wong gave the talk “Using Animal Instincts to Design Efficient Biological Experiments” at Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California. He will also give the same talk and a workshop on Recent Development of Biostatistics & Statistics at Department of Applied Mathematics, Polytechnic University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, December 18-19, 2012.

• Congratulations to Weng Kee Wong, who was selected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest general scientific society and the publisher of the journal Science.(PDF)

• Weng Kee Wong will be a Visiting Scholar to Department of Statistics, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China, December 10-23, 2012. He is also invited as a Visiting Sholar to Department of Statistics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, August-September 2013.

• Robert Weiss was elected chair of the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science (SBSS) for 2012.

• Congratulations to Weng Kee Wong, who was appointed as an Associate Editor for Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference and Statistical Methods for Medical Research, 2012-present.

• Ron Brookmeyer gave an invited talk at the National Institute of Health Symposium on Statistics in Biomedical Research: Making and Translating New Discoveries, National Institute of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, on November 10, 2012.

• On November 1, 2012 Weng Kee Wong was an instructor for 1-day Short Course at Amgen Inc, Thousand Oaks, California. The course title was Optimal Dose Response Designs.

• Donatello Telesca has been appointed 2012 webmaster for the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science (SBSS) of the American Statistical Association.

• Donatello Telesca was one of the recipients of the UCLA Hellman Fellows Award (2012). Established by Warren & Chris Hellman and their children in 1994, the purpose of the Hellman Fellows Program is to support the research of promising assistant professors who show capacity for great distinction in their chosen fields of endeavor.(PDF)

• Weng Kee Wong was invited to Undergradute Colloquium for the Mathematical Sciences, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Loyola University, Chicago, on September 10, 2012. The talk title was Using Animal Insticts to Design more Efficient Drug Studies.

• Marc Suchard was one of the 48 Fellows elected for 2012 American Statistical Association. The recipients were recognized for their outstanding professional contributions to and leadership in the field of statistical science.(Full story)

• Weng Kee Wong was invited Visiting Scholar, Department of Mathematics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, July 1-10, 2012.

• Marc Suchard has been elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association. He will be recognized at the annual Joint Statistical Meetings in San Diego in July 2012.

• Weng Kee Wong was invited Visiting Scholar, Department of Probability and Applied Statistics, National University of Singapore, Singapore, June 14-30, 2012.

• Weng Kee Wong was a Keynote Speaker at Annual Joint Biostatistics Symposium sponsored by Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio on May 17, 2012. The talk title was Nature-Inspired Meta-Heuristic Algorithms for Generating Optimal Experiment Designs.

• Weng Kee Wong was invited Visiting Scholar, Department of Statistics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden, from March 17-April 1, 2012.

• Weng Kee Wong was invited Visiting Fellow and was elected a member of Scientific Advisory Committee for a 6-month Design and Analysis of Experiments Workshop at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, England, July 18-December 21, 2011.

• Weng Kee Wong was invited Visiting Scholoar, Department of Statistics, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou, China, November 11-29, 2012.

• Weng Kee Wong was the organizer and Chair of a 1-week Workshop on Design and Analysis of Clinical Trials at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, National University of Singapore, Singapore, October 24-28, 2011.

• Weng Kee Wong was nominated Invited Speaker for the Academy Colloquium at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Amsterdam, April 26-28, 2011. The talk title was Multiple-Objective Optimal Designs.

• Weng Kee Wong was elected a fellow of Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2011.

• Marc Suchard (along with co-author Philippe Lemey, Alexei Drummond and Andrew Rambaut) won the 2011 Mitchell Prize from the International Society of Bayesian Analysis for his paper entitled "Bayesian phylogeography finds its roots”. He previously received the award in 2006, putting him in a select group with only three others who twice have won the award, which was first presented in 1994.

• Marc Suchard won the 2011 Raymond J. Carroll Young Investigator Award presented biannually by the Texas A & M University Department of Statistics to recognize a scholar within 10 years of receiving a Ph.D. degree for outstanding contributions to Statistical Science.

• Ron Brookmeyer was awarded the President's Citation at the 151st Commencement of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art "for the development of new statistical methods and models for tracking the spread and consequences of disease". The award recognizes distinguished individuals who have made important contributions. He graduated from Cooper Union in 1975.

• Congratulations to Weng Kee Wong, who was appointed as an Associate Editor for Journal of Data Science, 2011-present.

• On May 20th, Rob Weiss became Chair Elect of the Section on Bayesian Statistics by the ASA. He will take office on January 1, 2011.

• Congratulations to Gang Li, who was elected a fellow of the American Statistical Association. He will receive the award at the Joint Statistical Meeting in Vancouver August 2010.

• Congratulations to Catherine Sugar, who was recently awarded the Dean's Distinguished Teaching Award.

• Five of our graduate students have received school of public health (SPH) awards, including Qing Yang who received the Celia and Joseph Blann Fellowship for academic excellence; Cory Zigler who won the Carolbeth Korn Prize for most outstanding graduating student; Heidi Fischer and Xuyang Lu who both received the Raymond D. Goodman Scholarship for outstanding continuing students; and Ying Zhou who received the Dean's Outstanding Student Award.

• Congratulations to Adam King, who received the Chancellor's Prize Award, 2009-10.

• Congratulations to Jonathan Britt and Brian Calimlim, who both received the School of Public Health "Distinguished Teaching Award" (a.k.a. "TA of the Year"), 2009-10.

Robin Jeffries was featured in the November 2009 issue of the UCLA School of Public Health magazine. The full issue can be found at http://www.ph.ucla.edu/magazine/full_magazine_11_09.pdf.