The Department of Statistics at Texas A&M University in April hosted the Best of Statistical Science (BOSS) 2025, a two-day workshop that brought together a distinguished group of experts, faculty and students for an engaging program of academic exchange, professional networking and interdisciplinary collaboration.
The workshop was made possible in part through the generous support of Drs. Alicia Carriquiry and James Berger, funded by Hagler Fellowship awards from the Hagler Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University. Their contributions reflect the power of strategic academic philanthropy and its continued aid to excellence in research and education.
The BOSS 2025 workshop featured engaging presentations and insightful discussions led by 16 prominent statisticians and included a graduate student poster session, which displayed the research of 14 graduate students.
“BOSS 2025 was a convergence of minds dedicated to advancing statistical science across disciplines and borders,” said Brani Vidakovic, department head and professor of statistics. “It brought together 77 attendees—including 41 students—from 18 universities for a dynamic celebration of academic exchange, learning and collaboration. Can The program featured keynote lectures, student-led sessions, networking opportunities and research discussions in an inclusive and intellectually vibrant atmosphere for participants at all levels.”
A workshop highlight was recognition of a group of the following statisticians whose careers reflect not only disciplinary leadership but also the true and broader impact statistics have had in shaping policy, science and society:
Dipak Dey | 2025 Hocking Lecturer
Dr. Dipak Dey, Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor at the University of Connecticut, was named the 2025 Hocking Lecturer. His research career includes extensive contributions to Bayesian analysis and modeling across a variety of data types, including survival, spatial, image and temporal data. His work spans multiple fields, such as public health, medicine, ecology, economics and social science. Specific areas of contribution include simultaneous estimation problems, Stein-type estimation, and the development of robust generalized Bayesian methods.
The Ronald R. Hocking Endowed Lecture Series in Statistics on Breakthrough in Statistical Science, which recognizes outstanding achievements in statistical science, was designed to celebrate Hocking’s three-fold development of the theory, teaching and application of linear models. It was established in 2001 through a gift from Dr. Ersen Arseven, a former member of the Texas A&M statistics faculty and department benefactor who now works as an independent consultant to biotech and biopharmaceutical businesses. Recipients receive an honorarium and a commemorative placard during the ceremony.
Sudipto Banerjee | 2025 Zorich Lecturer
Dr. Sudipto Banerjee is a professor in the Department of Biostatistics at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health and in the Department of Statistics at the College of Physical Sciences with an affiliate appointment in the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. His research expertise includes Bayesian hierarchical modeling and inference for complex systems involving massive datasets; environmental processes and their impact on public health; spatial data science; spatial epidemiology; stochastic process models; statistical learning from physical and mechanistic systems; survey sampling and survival analysis.
The Zorich Reliability Workshop was established by Dr. John Zorich, a prominent Houston statistician, to educate Texas A&M students and others who are interested in applied industrial statistics on the broad topic of reliability. It has been described as a bridge between the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering and an exciting opportunity to showcase the methodology of science in the function of engineering.
Ramsés Mena | Inaugural SETCASA Speaker
Dr. Ramses Humberto Mena Chavez is an internationally recognized statistician who was named the inaugural SETCASA speaker at Texas A&M. He earned a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Bath, England, and now serves as professor of statistics in the Department of Probability & Statistics at the Institute of Applied Mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
The Department of Statistics hosts the annual SETCASA Poster Sessions to highlight regional statistical research of statisticians and applied scientists working on problems with a strong statistical component. The event is organized by the Southeast Texas Chapter of the American Statistical Association with funds provided by the American Statistical Association and the Texas A&M Department of Statistics.
To wrap up the event, the department continued a long tradition known as the Deely Awards, which were established by Dr. John Deely, a late statistician from Purdue University. These humorous awards are bestowed on individuals for unusual speakers, slides, speech delivery and the like. Although they are now connected mostly to Bayesian conferences, the Texas A&M Department of Statistics continued the Deely Awards legacy.