Purdue Announces New Head Of The Department Of Statistics

Leo Migdal

-Dec 6, 2025, 10:19 PM

purdue announces new head of the department of statistics

Xiao Wang, J.O. Berger and M.E. Bock Professor of Statistics (Purdue University Photo/Alisha Referda) After a competitive search, Purdue University has announced Xiao Wang, J.O. Berger and M.E. Bock Professor of Statistics, will take on the role of head of the Department of Statistics, effective immediately.

Wang joined Purdue University as an assistant professor in 2009 and has served as interim head since August 2023. “Professor Xiao Wang brings a wealth of experience and a clear vision for future growth,” said Lucy Flesch, Fredrick L. Hovde Dean in the College of Science. “His dedication to innovative statistical education and research aligns perfectly with the department's rich history of excellence,” said Flesch. Wang will lead a dynamic department with 37 faculty members and 374 driven undergraduate and graduate students. This community of learners is a testament to the rich legacy of the Department of Statistics at Purdue University, which was formed in 1968, developing from a thriving program in the Division of Mathematical...

Writer(s): Emily Kinsell, Jennifer Jeffries After a competitive search, Purdue University has announced Xiao Wang, J.O. Berger and M.E. Bock Professor of Statistics, will take on the role of head of the Department of Statistics, effective immediately. Wang joined Purdue University as an assistant professor in 2009 and has served as interim head since August 2023. “Professor Xiao Wang brings a wealth of experience and a clear vision for future growth,” said Lucy Flesch, Fredrick L.

Hovde Dean in the College of Science. “His dedication to innovative statistical education and research aligns perfectly with the department's rich history of excellence,” said Flesch. Wang will lead a dynamic department with 37 faculty members and 374 driven undergraduate and graduate students. This community of learners is a testament to the rich legacy of the Department of Statistics at Purdue University, which was formed in 1968, developing from a thriving program in the Division of Mathematical... Purdue announces new head of the Department of Statistics. Professor Xiao Wang has served as an interim head since August 2023.

bit.ly/44g0HLk #Purdue #Science #Statistics #MyGiantLeap Office: MATH 538Phone: 765-496-7478Email: jawan@purdue.edu Office: MATH 518Phone: 765-496-9551Email: bhadra@purdue.edu Office: Math 502Phone: 765-496-0875Email: antik015@purdue.edu Associate Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering and Statistics Office: MSEE 338Phone: 765-496-0230Email: stanchan@purdue.edu

The Department of Statistics is proud to welcome four new faculty members whose expertise strengthens the department’s teaching, research, and outreach. Ernest Aboagye joins Purdue as a Senior Lecturer (75% Math, 25% Statistics) from Georgia State University’s Greenberg School of Risk Science, where he earned a PhD in risk management and insurance. His research develops advanced statistical tools for Value-at-Risk forecasting and actuarial risk analysis, with publications in the European Journal of Operational Research and the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control. Aboagye’s work advances quantitative methods for managing volatility, systemic risk, and reinsurance design. With professional experience as an actuary, he looks forward to combining teaching and research to prepare the next generation of risk professionals. Heejong Bong, a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Statistics, specializes in causal inference for data with complex dependence structures, including longitudinal and network data.

This emerging area has wide applications in public health and the social sciences. In addition, Bong has conducted research on spatiotemporal latent factor methods, graphical models, high-dimensional central limit theorems, and ranking from pairwise comparisons. Shimeng Huang joins Purdue as a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Actuarial Science with a joint appointment in the Department of Statistics(75%) and the Department of Mathematics(25%). She earned her PhD in insurance economics and actuarial analytics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her research explores the intersection of climate risk, catastrophic events, insurance analytics, machine learning, and dependence modeling. Walid Sharabati brings expertise in applied and computational statistics, machine learning, and data science to his role as Assistant Professor of Practice.

His research interests include social network analysis, image processing, denoising and super-resolution, natural language processing, and large language models. Sharabati also develops the data science behind digital assistants. He will contribute to the department’s online applied statistics program and the university’s data science program. The Statistics Department #Purdue announces new leadership: Professor Xiao Wang had the "interim" tag removed from his title. He says, "My aim is to empower our students to lead the charge in the dynamic field of data science." ➡ https://bit.ly/3W3xj9e ⬅ The Department of Statistics is consistently recognized as one of the top statistics programs in the country.

We work to advance the frontiers of statistical sciences and data science both in theory and application. New directions in statistics are often interdisciplinary and encompass bioinformatics and genomics, computational finance, data science, differential privacy, and machine learning. The National Research Council recognizes our faculty as one of the nation's strongest. Our faculty and graduates are leaders in academia and industry who bring the strengths of the statistical sciences to the world’s toughest challenges. Our FacultyUndergraduate StudentsGraduate StudentsResearchActuarial Science 2025-26 Frederick L.

Hovde Distinguished Lecturer - Susan Murphy Susan A. Murphy is Mallinckrodt Professor of Statistics and of Computer Science and Associate Faculty at the Kempner Institute, Harvard University. She will present her research to the Purdue University College of Science as a 2025-26 Frederick L. Hovde Distinguished Lecturer. Purdue Actuarial Science Leads AI-Driven Research in Advancing the Profession

The July 2025 Odds and Ends newsletter for the Purdue University Department of Statistics is hot off the presses. Inside, you’ll find highlights from the past year, including: Stay connected with the Purdue Statistics community and see how we continue to advance research, education, and collaboration. Welcome to the Department of Statistics at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana. It is recognized as one of the top statistics programs in the country. Our mission is to advance the frontiers of statistical sciences and data science in both theory and applications; to provide learning environments that produce well-educated data scientists, statisticians, probabilists, and quantitatively literate people; and...

The Department responds to emerging issues in society and has created new groups in statistical computing, statistical machine learning, bioinformatics, and environmental statistics in the last couple of decades. More recently, it has increased faculty expertise in data science to address the new issues brought forth by big data with complex structure, which are often encountered in data-driven research. The Department offers the degrees of Bachelor of Science, Graduate Certificate, Master of Science, and Ph.D. in Statistics. Our programs prepare students for careers in both industry and academia, and prepare them to be leaders in their fields. Thank you for visiting our site and learning more about our exciting research and programs.

Purdue Announces New Head Of The Department Of Statistics

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Bit.ly/44g0HLk #Purdue #Science #Statistics #MyGiantLeap Office: MATH 538Phone: 765-496-7478Email: Jawan@purdue.edu