The Dr. Bing Zhang Department of Statistics is home to an exciting and dynamic research environment. The experience of our established faculty combines seamlessly with the energy and fresh perspectives of our younger faculty, creating a synergy that helps to facilitate the production of high quality, modern research designed to meet the needs and interests of a changing student body and a changing world. While the department retains a strong interest in mathematical statistics, as has been our tradition, most of our faculty are focused on research that is in some way highly computational and outcomes-focused.
Faculty have access to the College of Arts & Sciences shared cluster, which consists of 4 compute nodes (160 cores) and is on a Dell R640 Server. Each node has 128 GB of 2900 MHz RAM and a 480 GB local SSD and runs Linux OS (CentOS 7). The cluster also houses 2 GPU nodes (24 CPU cores, 11,520 GPU cores) and is on a Dell R730 Server. Each GPU node as 128GB of 2133 MHz RAM and a 300 GB local (internal) SAS disk @ 10K RPM. In addition, faculty utilize the University of Kentucky’s Lipscomb High Performance Computing cluster. This is a Dell PowerEdge C6100 Cluster and is rated at just over 140 teraflops. This service provides access to a computing cluster with 376 nodes, 36 GB of memory per node, and 250 TB of global disk space.
Below are the research areas, publication outlets, and funding sources that were documented in our most recent faculty merit review.
Represented Research Areas
| Applied Probability | Epidemiology | Quality Control |
| Astrostatistics | Goodness-of-Fit | Quantile Regression |
| Bayesian Modeling | High-Dimensional Inference | Ranks-Based Methods |
| Bioinformatics | Large Sample Theory | Reliability Theory |
| Cardiovascular Health | Linear Models | Semi-parametric Models |
| Causal Inference | Longitudinal Data Analysis | Spatial Statistics |
| Chemometrics | Machine Learning | Statistical Genetics |
| Clinical Trials | Microarray Data Analysis | Survey Data Analysis |
| Compartmental Models | Mixture Models | Survival Analysis |
| Computational Statistics | Model Combining | Time Series |
| Data Depth | Models for Network Data | Tolerance Regions |
| Data Science | Multivariate Methods | Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) |
| Decision Theory | Nonlinear Models | Variable Selection |
| Dimension Reduction | Nonparametric Methods | Zero-inflated Models |
| Disease Clustering | Phylogenetics | |
| Econometrics | Predictive Modeling in Big Data |
Recent Faculty Publication Outlets
| Advances in Data Analysis and Classification | Journal of Neuroscience Methods |
| Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry | Journal of Nonparametric Statistics |
| Biometrical Journal | Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation |
| Cancer Informatics | Journal of Statistical Distributions and Applications |
| Communications in Statistics | Journal of Statistics |
| Computational Statistics and Data Analysis | Journal of Statistics Education |
| Drug and Alcohol Dependence | Journal of the Royal Statistical Society |
| IEICE, Neurocomputing | Methodology and Computing in Applied Probability |
| Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease | Neurology |
| Journal of American Statistical Association | Pharmaceutical Statistics |
| Journal of Animal Science | Scandinavian Journal of Statistics |
| Journal of Applied Statistics | Statistica Neerlandica |
| Journal of Chemometrics | Statistical Methods in Medical Research |
| Statistical Science |
Current or Recent Funding Sources
In the 2019-2020 fiscal year, $40,698,748.00 in collaborative funding involved the Dr. Bing Zhang Department of Statistics. This amounted to more than 36% of all grants and contracts coming to UK that were associated with Arts & Sciences departments, while the department faculty account for less than 4% of all faculty in the college.
| American Heart Association | NIH/NHLBI |
| Carnegie Corporation | NIH/NIA |
| Centers for Disease Control | NIH/NIAMS |
| Chan Zuckerberg Initiative | NIH/NIDA |
| Department of Defense | NIH/NIDDK |
| KY Cabinet for Health and Family Services | NIH/NIGMS |
| KY Transportation Cabinet | NIH/NINDS |
| National Multiple Sclerosis Society | Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) |
| Neilsen Foundation | US Army |
| NIH/NCRR | US Department of Education |
Our Ph.D. Graduates
A program’s Ph.D. graduates are always a reflection of the faculty that taught them. You can find completed dissertations at https://uknowledge.uky.edu/statistics_etds/. Please keep in mind that there is an initial embargo period once a dissertation is completed.
Alumni of our doctoral program are hired immediately upon graduation with a virtually 100% placement rate. They find homes in academics, industry, and government, working to advance methods used within the field of statistics as well as to better the world through using data to improve decision-making. Our doctoral level graduates hold a variety of positions, including:
- Endowed Professor and Chair, Department of Biostatistics, University of Kentucky
- Professor, Department of Statistics and Data Science, Cornell University
- Associate Professor, South Dakota State University
- Assistant Professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Duke University
- Assistant Professor, Virginia Commonwealth University
- Assistant Professor, Miami University
- President of MacroStat, Inc.
- President of EarlyPhase Sciences
- Executive Director of Biostatistics – Novartis
- Owner and Founder, Stat Tenacity Consulting
Our faculty and students always have the opportunity to participate in research training from a variety of unique sources. Here are some of the opportunties that they have now or have just had recently.
KBRIN - Applied Statistics Core
The primary goal of the KY INBRE Applied Statistics Core is to improve the breadth and quality of statistical support for scholarship in the KY INBRE Network. Partnering with the University of Kentucky Applied Statistics Laboratory (ASL), statistical support is offered to research staff in the Network. Multiple students have been trained through this program already.
State University Partnership Program
As part of a funded program entitled “Using Data Science Tools to Analyze Medicaid Claims Data,” faculty are providing data science training for students to analyze large claims data sets. Students will then use this training to complete several summer practicum projects, producing results to inform policy makers.
Statistics Undergraduate Research Experience (SURE)
The purpose of SURE was to launch an undergraduate component of the NSF-supported SRCOS Summer Research Conference to encourage STEM majors to pursue graduate education and career opportunities in the statistical sciences or other STEM fields.