On July 27, 2026, Ph.D. student Xiaohui Yin successfully defended her thesis entitled “On Rare Event Modeling with Electronic Health Records.” The work was supported by multiple NIH grants on data-driven suicide prevention. Xiaohui has won multiple awards with her papers, including Student Paper Award from the Mental Health Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association in 2024 and Student Poster Award from the 39th New England Statistics Symposium in 2026. Xiaohui was advised by Dr. Kun Chen, and his committee also included Dr. Robert Aseltine, Dr. Ming-Hui Chen, and Dr. Jun Yan. Thank you all for your support!

After graduation, Xiaohui will join Yale University as a postdoc. Congratulations, Dr. Yin!

Kun Chen, Professor of Statistics, has been named Academic Director of UConn’s M.S. in Data Science program.

As Academic Director, Chen will provide intellectual and strategic leadership for the M.S. in Data Science program. He will work across UConn’s schools and colleges to guide the program’s academic direction, strengthen its curriculum, support faculty collaboration, enhance the student experience, deepen relationships with industry and external partners, and identify new opportunities for growth and innovation.

Chen’s appointment comes at a pivotal moment for the field. As data science and artificial intelligence rapidly converge, organizations increasingly need professionals who combine advanced analytical and AI capabilities with strong statistical foundations, ethical judgment, and deep domain expertise. Under Chen’s leadership, the program will build on its strengths in statistics, computing, machine learning, and applied problem-solving while expanding opportunities at the intersection of data science and artificial intelligence.

See detailed news from UConn Faculty/Staff Daily Digest.