I have taught several topics to students with varied backgrounds:

• STAT 212: A first course in biostatistics
• STAT 430: The practice of applied statistics
• STAT 434: Survival analysis
• STAT 530: Graduate bioinformatics
• STAT 578: Topics courses for statistics PhD students

I have been selected to the University of Illinois's List of Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students for multiple courses over multiple semesters.

My main approach is to help students understand how the statistical topics they learn are connected to each other and to other disciplines at a fundamental level.

I developed new material to explain the connection between statistics and data analysis. I contextualize statistical concepts and methods in the larger scientific process of answering substantive questions using quantitative data. I created a new curriculum to teach these concepts in my STAT 430 and STAT 530 courses, which attract students from multiple departments across the univeristy.

I also emphasize the connection between different statistical methods. I illustrate how most analysis procedures are all based on the same core set of statistical and probabilistic principles. I aim to teach students to start from these core principles to create and understand analysis procedures instead of simply memorizing them. I developed new material to teach my STAT 212, STAT 434, and STAT 578 courses in this way.

Finally, I teach PhD students to do research. I have so far have been fortunate to advise:

NameCurrent position
Eman AbdelatifPhD student
Alton BarbehennUCSF
William BiscarriJP Morgan
Eduardo Cardenas-TorresPhD student
Arjama DasPhD student
Aster GuanPhD student
Young Joo LeePhD student
Chengyang LuPhD student
Robin TuNorthrop Grumman
Yihe WangFacebook
Huiqin XinFacebook
Rachel ZhouWaymo