Letter from the Chair: 2025
Dear Statistics Alumni and Friends,
As the academic year draws to a close on the Central Coast, I'm pleased to reflect on another productive and inspiring year in our department. I'm excited to share some of the highlights with you.
We are proud to continue expanding opportunities for our students to explore, apply, and communicate statistics and data science. Last spring, we celebrated the graduation of our first cohort of 10 master’s students in our new blended program. The program has proven extremely popular and remains in high demand—with 14 master's student graduates this year. Our undergraduate program is also vibrant, awarding 59 bachelor degrees in statistics last year.
In April, the department hosted our second in-person DataFest competition, led by Dr. Emily Robinson. Thanks to support from the Noyce School of Applied Computing and other donors, we expanded the event to include about 80 students from Cal Poly, along with teams from CSU Monterey Bay. The weekend showcased collaborative problem-solving, creativity, and the joy of working with real data. Read more here.
Dr. Kelly Bodwin brought 12 data science capstone students to the 2025 Symposium on Data Science and Statistics in Salt Lake City, where they presented interdisciplinary projects. These included analyzing social networks in pre-revolutionary Poland with History Department faculty, extracting fire-prevention policy proposals from planning documents with collaborators in Architecture and Social Sciences, identifying clothing logos in imagery for the Global Emancipation Network, and exploring boiling behavior in rocket fuel tanks with NASA Ames. In addition, six of our students attended the 2024 Joint Statistical Meetings in Portland, building connections and engaging with cutting-edge research across the field. Over spring break, Dr. Beth Chance led five students on a journey to historically significant statistics landmarks, connecting them with our discipline’s history and inspiring their future paths. Stops included the Florence Nightingale Museum, the Broad Street Pump, Rothamsted Research, a visit with Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter at Cambridge University, Bletchley Park, and the Museum of Computing.
In spring quarter, Dr. Chance also launched a new and extremely popular Sports Analytics course. The class brought in speakers from across the nation and from a wide range of sports. A special thank you to our alumni who returned as guest speakers to share their experiences—your generosity and insight made a meaningful impact.
This year we also celebrated several important faculty milestones. Dr. Allan Rossman retired after 24 years at Cal Poly. A pioneer in statistics education and our department chair from 2013 to 2019, Allan leaves a lasting legacy on students and colleagues alike. After seven years as a lecturer, we’re excited to welcome Dr. Immanuel Williams's transition to the tenure-line as our newest Assistant Professor starting next Fall. Lastly, Dr. Heather Smith received the ASA’s Dixon Award for Excellence in Statistical Consulting. Many of you experienced firsthand the value of our senior capstone consulting course—one of Heather’s signature contributions and a hallmark of our program.
In addition, our faculty continue to advance the field through their research and publications. This year’s contributions span topics from teaching practices to causal inference and computational methods, and appeared in journals and books such as:
- Drs. Anelise Sabbag and Samuel Frame: Student engagement in online statistics courses — Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education
- Dr. Hunter Glanz: Data Science for All (Textbook)
- Dr. Julia Schedler: Wastewater surveillance methods — Environmental Science: Water Research & Technology
- Dr. Trevor Ruiz: Sparse modeling in time series analysis — Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation
- Dr. Emily Robinson: Perception of logarithmic scales in data visualizations — Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics
- Dr. Charlotte Mann: Causal inference and data privacy — Journal of Causal Inference
- Drs. Soma Roy, Karen McGaughey, and Beth Chance: Simulation-based inference in teaching — Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education
- Dr. Allison Theobold: Evaluating inclusivity in teaching — Journal of Statistics and Data Science Education
We’ve also made exciting improvements to our learning spaces. Thanks to the generosity of Emeritus Professor Dr. Roxy Peck, we completed our move into a new studio classroom. Designed for computing and data science courses, this flexible space supports collaborative group work and innovative instruction for up to 48 students.
Last but certainly not least, this spring we welcomed Marieke Montenegro as our new administrative coordinator. She’s already made a strong impression on the department. At the same time, we bid farewell to Miranda Wyzlic, who is now an analyst in the Biology Department. Her warmth and creativity are missed, but we’re thrilled for her well-deserved promotion.
We love hearing from our alumni. Your updates, insights, and support continue to inspire our faculty and students. Please send us your contact information at statisticsdepartment@calpoly.edu, and let us know what you’ve been up to—we’d love to feature you in a future newsletter.
Thank you for being part of the ever-growing Cal Poly Statistics family. Your connection strengthens our community, and we look forward to the exciting journey ahead.
Warm regards,
Andrew Schaffner
Professor and Chair
Department of Statistics
Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo
