Posted on Monday, June 2, 2025
The 38th New England Statistics Symposium (NESS) was successfully held in New Haven, co-hosted by the Department of Biostatistics at the Yale School of Public Health and the Department of Statistics & Data Science. The event spanned four days, featuring six short courses on May 31 and June 1, followed by two days of main conference sessions. The symposium attracted over 300 attendees from across New England and far beyond. Opening remarks were delivered by Dr. Megan Ranney, Dean of the Yale School of Public Health, and Dr. Bhramar Mukherjee, Senior Associate Dean. The program included keynote talks from distinguished speakers: Dr. John Lafferty and Dr. Heping Zhang (Yale University), Dr. Nancy Zhang (University of Pennsylvania), and Dr. Michael Lopez (NFL). Presenters from academia, industry, and government covered a broad spectrum of topics – from foundational mathematical statistics to state-of-the-art developments in artificial intelligence. This year’s symposium upheld the NESS tradition of fostering meaningful dialogue, collaboration, and innovation within the statistical community and beyond.
The 2025 Chernoff Excellence in Statistics Award was presented to Dr. Alan E. Gelfand, James B. Duke Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Statistical Science at Duke University, in recognition of his outstanding lifetime contributions to spatial and spatio-temporal analysis, particularly in environmental and ecological applications. This award was established by NESS to honor Dr. Herman Chernoff’s outstanding, long-term contributions to the field of statistics. This year’s award committee—Rebecca A. Betensky, Francesca Dominici, Xiaoyu Jiang, Shuangge (Steven) Ma, Kevin D. Roberts, Minge Xie, and Michele Zemplenyi—enthusiastically selected Dr. Gelfand for this distinguished honor.
