Principal Investigator
Ray Bai, Assistant Professor of Statistics
PhD in Statistics, University of FloridaMS in Applied Mathematics, University of Massachusetts Amherst
BA in Economics and Government, Cornell University
CV, Google Scholar
PhD Advisees
Current
- Sijian Fan, PhD candidate in Statistics, University of South Carolina
Dissertation title: Statistical Learning for Sparse Matrix Problems - Fanghua Chen, PhD candidate in Statistics, University of South Carolina (co-advising with Ting Fung Ma)
Dissertation topic: deep learning theory and methods for dependent and complex data
Former
- Zile Zhao, PhD in Statistics, 2025, University of South Carolina
Dissertation title: Methods and Applications for Bayesian Semiparametric Survival Analysis
First position: Postdoctoral Fellow, Moffitt Cancer Center - Shijie Wang, PhD in Statistics, 2024, University of South Carolina
Dissertation title: New Deep Learning Approaches to Classical Statistical Problems
First position: Applied Scientist, Gauss Labs
Winner of James D. Lynch Graduate Student Research Award
Undergraduate and Masters Advisees
Current
- Leah Wood, Honors Thesis student, BS in Statistics (expected 2025), University of South Carolina
Honors Thesis: Estimating Maternal Mortality in South Carolina from 2018-2023 with Suppressed Data: An Interval-Censored Approach
Former
- Emily Sitnik, Summer REU student, BS candidate in Mathematics and Statistics, University of South Carolina
Research project: Bayesian spatial modeling for disease mapping and causal inference - Mark Ritchie, Summer REU student, BS candidate in Mathematics, University of South Carolina
Research project: Bayesian spatial modeling for disease mapping and causal inference - Evan Funderburg, Summer REU student, BS candidate in Computer Science and Data Science, University of South Carolina
Research project: Bayesian spatial modeling for disease mapping and causal inference
Other Student Collaborators*
(* I am/was not the primary supervisor of these students)Current
- Liyan Xiong, PhD candidate in Biostatistics, University of South Carolina
Research project: statistical methods for computational drug repositioning - Dayuan Wang, PhD candidate in Biostatistics, University of Florida
Research project: statistical methods for computational drug repositioning
Former
- Xin Zhi, PhD in Statistics, University of South Carolina (graduated 2025)
Research project: Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) for survival analysis
First position: Senior Scientist, Merck - Qingyang Liu, PhD in Statistics, University of South Carolina (graduated 2023)
Research project: new approaches to modal regression and Gaussian process regression
First position: Postdoctoral Fellow in Statistics, Texas A&M University - Anja Zgodic, PhD in Biostatistics, University of South Carolina (graduated 2023)
Research project: scalable Bayesian methodology for high-dimensional regression models
First position: Research Data Scientist, Lubrizol
Winner of ENAR Distinguished Student Paper Award - Hung-Tien Huang, BS in Computer Science, University of South Carolina (graduated 2023)
Research project: explainable reinforcement learning with deep learning models
First position: PhD student in Computer Science, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill