Outreach and Engagement
The Department of Statistics is an active community that engages students and lifetime learners at UConn and beyond.
We contribute to the field of statistics by hosting events and participating in professional organizations. We also share our know-how with UConn researchers in other fields – and enhance the University’s research profile in the process.
Current Initiatives
Education and Training
We offer general education and research courses that serve students in virtually all majors at UConn. Members of the Department also participate in UConn programs that benefit Connecticut students and educators.
- Our UConn Pre-College Summer course on data science exposes incoming first-year students to the essential components and computing skills needed for data science.
- We train UConn Early College Experience instructors, holding certification workshops for participating high school teachers each summer.
Consulting
We provide services to researchers and employees at UConn to help them better understand statistical concepts and apply them to their work. For example, our faculty and graduate students contribute to:
- Statistical Consulting Services, which advises researchers from other disciplines about the collection and analysis of data.
- EnergyStats, a collaboration with UConn's Utility Operations & Energy Management. Using statistical modeling and visualization of UConn's energy consumption data (either real-time high-frequency or monthly), EnergyStats can detect anomalous consumption behavior and to predict future usage.
Community Engagement
We maintain relationships with professional organizations and area companies and institutions. These connections open doors for our students and help us contribute to our field. Examples include:
- We are an active member of the American Statistical Association (ASA) Connecticut chapter and a founding member of the New England Statistical Society’s annual symposium.
- We host the Pfizer Colloquium each year in partnership with the ASA and Pfizer Inc.
Events
The Department of Statistics regularly sponsors and hosts conferences, colloquia, lectures, and seminar series where scholars of all levels can learn and collaborate. Many of these events are local, affordable, and accessible, allowing students to participate and in some cases present their own research. Examples include:
Recent Events
UConn/UMass Joint Colloquium: Aaron Sarvet, Assistant Professor, UMass, The outperformance of machine learning by human intuition: resolving a paradox with unmeasured confounding
Title: The outperformance of machine learning by human intuition: resolving a paradox with unmeasured confounding Presented by Aaron Sarvete, Assistant Professor; University of Massachusetts, Amherst DATE: Wednesday, April 15, 2026, 3:30 PM, AUST 434 Meeting Link: WebEx link Coffee will be available at 3:00 PM in the Noether Lounge (AUST 326) Bio: Dr. Sarvet is an […]
[Read More]Robert W. Makuch Distinguished Lecture in Biostatistics: Bhramar Mukherjee, Professor, Yale University, The Importance of Statistical Thinking in an AI-Augmented World
Title: The Importance of Statistical Thinking in an AI-Augmented World Presented by Bhramar Mukherjee, Anna M.R. Lauder Professor of Biostatistics and inaugural Senior Associate Dean of Public Health Data Science and Data Equity, Yale University DATE: Wednesday, April 8, 2026, 3:30 PM, AUST 434 Meeting Link: WebEx link Coffee will be available at 3:00 PM in […]
[Read More]Statistics Colloquium: Yichi Zhang, Assistant Professor, Indiana University Bloomington, Random-walk Debiased Contextual Preference Inference for Large Language Model Evaluation
Title: Random-walk Debiased Contextual Preference Inference for Large Language Model Evaluation Presented by Yichi Zhang, Assistant Professor, Indiana University Bloomington DATE: Friday, April 3, 2026, 10:00 AM, AUST 313 Meeting Link: WebEx link Coffee will be available at 9:30 AM in the Noether Lounge (AUST 326) Abstract: Various large language models, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Llama, […]
[Read More]Statistics Colloquium: Dingyi Wang, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Stratification and Antithetic Mechanisms for Subsampling
Title: Stratification and Antithetic Mechanisms for Subsampling Presented by Dingyi Wang, Chinese Academy of Sciences DATE: Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 3:30 PM, AUST 434 Meeting Link: WebEx link Coffee will be available at 3:00 PM in the Noether Lounge (AUST 326) Abstract: Massive datasets present computational challenges for statistical estimation, making subsampling a critical tool for […]
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