Doctor of Philosophy in Statistical Science
- Fall January 10
- Spring August 10
- Pullman: Yes
- 100 TOEFLI Minimum Score
- 7 IELTS Minimum Score
Degree Description:
The PhD in Statistical Science is meant to give students both a strong background in statistics and a working knowledge in a secondary field. Applicants are expected to have a B.S. in statistics, mathematics, or a similar field with courses taken in probability theory and mathematical statistics/statistical theory. Core and elective statistics classes offered through the Department of Mathematics & Statistics are taken in addition to classes from a partnering allied department, such as Biology, Economics, Education, Mathematics, or Psychology. At least one member of the student’s committee is encouraged to be from the appropriate allied department in the student’s field of research. This creates an interdisciplinary curriculum designed to teach students to develop new statistical methods to solve real life problems that arise in their chosen area of concentration.
Core Statistics Courses:
Stat 548 Statistical Theory I (Advanced Probability)
Stat 549 Statistical Theory II (Advanced Inference)
Stat 536 Statistical Computing
Stat 533 Theory of Linear Models
Stat 574 Linear and Non-linear Mixed Models
Stat 575 Theory of Multivariate Analysis
Admission Requirements:
Prerequisites for admission include courses in Calculus, Linear Algebra, Computer Programming, and Statistical Methods. Analysis and Advanced Linear Algebra is recommended, as well as additional statistics classes.
For international students, either a TOEFL or IETLS score is required; recommended TOEFL score of 100 and IELTS of 7. Exceptions can be found here: https://gradschool.wsu.edu/international-requirements/
The application will require:
- Unofficial transcripts from all previous institutions.
- GPA above a 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.
- Resume/cv.
- Email contact information for 3 references.
- Personal statement. The personal statement is your chance to highlight relevant experiences and discuss your future research interests.
- GRE scores are not required but encouraged.
Student Learning Outcomes:
A student completing this degree will:
1. Develop knowledge of advanced statistical theory and statistical methodology.
2. Gain understanding of statistical analysis and its applications to a relevant field.
3. Be familiar with statistical computing and commonly used statistical software such as R, S-PLUS, SAS, and data management programs.
4. Be able to apply statistical knowledge to real life problems effectively and ethically, understanding the theoretical assumptions and practical limitations of the methodologies applied.
5. Communicate effectively the principles and methods of statistical science in both written and oral forms.
6. Be prepared to conduct independent research in statistical sciences with a focus on interdisciplinary research.
Student Opportunities:
Students are encouraged to create industry connections by completing an internship at some point in their studies, often finding opportunities in the growing cities of Portland or Seattle. Students may also gain consulting experience working for CISER, the Center for Interdisciplinary Statistical Education and Research, as part of their assistantship duties.
Career Placements:
Graduates from the Statistical Science PhD program begin careers in both academia and government or industry. A few examples of career placements from the past few years include:
- Data Scientist, Ping An Institute of Intelligence (CA)
- Assistant Professor, College of Wooster (OH)
- Quantitative Analyst, TD Bank
- Research Scientist, Baptist Memorial Healthcare Center (TN)
Faculty Members:
Asaki, Thomas James, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Applied optimization, image and data analysis
Chen, Xiongzhi, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Simultaneous inference (including variable/model selection and multiple comparison) with applications in biology and pharmaceutical science
Latent variable models for high-dimensional data with applications in genomics and signal processing
Analysis of non-Euclidean data (such as networks, shapes, images and tensors)
Spectra of random matrices (including those of sample auto-correlation/auto-covariance matrices) with applications to inference on high-dimensional data
Statistical inference on stochastic differential equations (including those driven by fractional Brownian motions) with applications in finance, biology and geology
Cooper, Kevin Dale, Ph.D.
Serves as: co-chair or member of graduate committee
Dasgupta, Nairanjana, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Non-parametric Statistics, Multiple Comparisons, Comparison to Control, Logistic Distribution, Optimal Designs, Design of Experiments, Innovative Methods of Teaching Statistics, The history of statistics.
Dimitrov, Alexander, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Information-theoretic and probabilistic approaches to neural computing and cognitive processes, non-linear neuronal models, chaotic dynamical systems, non-linear signal processing and prediction, systems identification, neural-based intelligent agents. Bioinspired engineering.
Hall, William, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Mathematics Education: the teaching and learning of calculus; professional identity of preservice and in-service secondary mathematics teachers
Hudelson, Matthew G, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Combinatorics and Discrete Geometry, Random Algorithms
Jandhyala, Venkata Krishna, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Change-point problems for statistical models and their applications, Quality control, Environmental monitoring, Econometrics.
Johnson, Dean, Ph.D.
Serves as: co-chair or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Educational statistics.
Teaching of statistics.
Statistical consulting.
Item response theory.
Kaul, Abhishek, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
High dimensional change point regression models; computational statistics and statistical learning
Khapalov, Alexander, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Applied Analysis; Mathematical Control Theory for Linear and Nonlinear Partial Differential Equations; Modeling, Wellposedness and Motion Capabilities for Swimming Phenomenon; Systems Theory: Controllability, Stabilization, Observability and Unique Continuation; Control of Power Systems.
Krishnamoorthy, Bala, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Applied algebraic topology, computational geometry, geometric measure theory, discrete optimization, data science; applications in computational chemistry, life sciences, and biomedicine.
Lapin, Sergey, Ph.D.
Serves as: co-chair or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Numerical modeling in many applied fields including (but not limited to) diagnosing and monitoring systemic disease, channel routing for flood forecasting, dynamic granular matter formation process, infectious disease epidemics, and simulation of fluid flow.
Li, Haijun, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Probability, Stochastic Processes, Risk Analysis.
Current Research: multivariate regular/rapid variation, cooperative games, copulas with graph structure
Liu, Sheng-Chi, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Number theory, automorphic forms and representation theory.
Manoranjan, Valipuram S, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Mathematical and computer modeling of nonlinear phenomena that arise in engineering and life sciences.
Problems of particular interest: Contaminant transport in groundwater, transdermal drug delivery, models in developmental biology, nonlinear waves (solitons); iterative methods with large convergence regions.
McDonald, Judi, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Matrix Analysis and Linear Algebra
Moore, Charles, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Analysis, Harmonic analysis, Partial Differential Equations, Probability Theory
Panchenko, Alexander, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Data Science: feature extraction from networks, learning network dynamics from limited time-series, statistical inference on networks. Application areas to plant biology and neuroscience.
Dynamics of active particle systems and active materials: mathematics of robot swarms involving the analysis and simulation of self-organizing particle systems possessing some means of self-propulsion and decision-making capability.
Continuum theories of large particle systems: production of a continuum description of a large system of atoms or molecules (like a fluid) starting from the atomistic equations of motion for the particles (Sixth Hilbert Problem)
Pascual, Francis, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Engineering Reliability, Failure-Time Models and Data Analysis, Robust Designs in Accelerated Life Tests.
Schreyer, Lynn, Graduate Studies Committee Chair
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Graduate Studies Committee Chair
Broad Interests: Deterministic Modeling, PDEs, Continuum Mechanics.
Currently: Mathematically modeling porous media – any material consisting of a solid and one or more other phases, including swelling porous materials. Examples include clays (expansive soils), polymers (such as drug-delivery polymers and bio-polymers), and cell membranes.
Schwartz, Elissa, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
– Experimental and theoretical techniques to investigate mechanisms in virology, immunology, and infectious disease epidemiology
– Control of lentiviral infection, including human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV).
– Mathematical and computational models of viral dynamics with clinical and experimental data to elucidate the determinants of virus control and escape.
Slavit, David, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Teacher development, particularly in collaborative professional contexts, teacher understanding and instruction STEM schools, the ways in which K-12 students develop understandings of algebraic ideas, particularly mathematical functions, and educational technology.
Sottile, Matthew, Ph.D.
Serves as: member only of graduate committee
Research Interests
Agent-based models
Image processing
Complex systems
Graph algorithms
Scientific computing
Programming languages
Strigul, Nicholas, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Broadly: environmental problems and research in mathematical biology, as well as a variety of modeling, experimental and field studies in different areas such as ecotoxicology, soil, microbial and avian ecology.
Current primary research:
1) Forest modeling – One of the major directions of this project is to investigate effects of environmental stressors and different land-use practices on forest dynamics. Forested ecological systems can be considered as complex adaptive systems, which result from self-organization on multiple levels.
2) Ecotoxicology, in particular tungsten ecotoxiology, in order to provide a scientific basis for pollution regulation and environmental risk-assessment.
Tsatsomeros, Michael, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Matrix theory, linear algebra and its applications
Vincent, Kimberly McGinley, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Collegiate and pre-service mathematics education.
Vixie, Kevin, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Geometric analysis and geometric measure theory, geometry and analysis in high dimensions, and data science. Examples include data driven advances in geometric measure theory, image analysis, regularity of minimizers, geometric analysis in metric measure spaces and graphs
Voulgarakis, Nikolaos, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Nanoscale modeling and simulation of soft biological systems and complex fluids. Applications areas: a) gene and drug delivery, b) cell membrane dynamics, and c) energy transfer in biomolecules.
Wang, Xueying, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Mathematical Biology: the mathematical analysis of deterministic and stochastic dynamics.
Current applications include synaptic noise, channel noise of a single neuron and coupled neurons, clustering and plasticity of neural networks, transmission dynamics of infectious diseases such as cholera and Ebola, and TrojanY-Chromosome eradication strategy of an invasive species.
Wang, Yuan, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Statistical learning of complex data objects including tree, curves and images
Bayesian variable selection
Adaptive clinical trial design
Compressive sensing and system design
Yin, Hong-Ming, Ph.D.
Serves as: chair, co-chair, or member of graduate committee
Research Interests
Financial Engineering and Portfolio Management; Applied Mathematics; Partial Differential Equations, Inverse and Ill-posed problems; Electromagnetic Fields and Semiconductor/Superconductor modeling.