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[MUSIC PLAYING] MARTIN WELLS: Good morning. On behalf of the faculty and staff of the Department of Statistics and data science in the Ann S. Bauer's College of Computing and Information Science, welcome to the commencement ceremony. I'm Martin Wells, the Department chair.
It's just great to see the graduates today, and it's great to see the families. On stage, we have a number of faculty. It's always wonderful when the faculty show up for graduations. It shows something about how much they care for the students and how proud they are of you.
So let me introduce them quickly. We have Florentina Bunea, Marten Wegkamp, Dana Yang, Sreyoshi Das, Kengo Kato, Yang Ning, Thorsten Joachims, Xiaolong Yang, Melissa Smith, James Booth. Catching my breath. I'm blanking.
Joe Guinness, he's really busy today. Sorry-- that thing with the thing. Madeleine Udell and James Dai.
To the families, thank you for coming today and showing support for your graduate and to celebrate their achievement. Thank you for supporting them over their time at Cornell. Congratulations to the graduates. It's such a pleasure to acknowledge the tremendous achievement-- your tremendous achievements over the years that have culminated in this ceremony.
At Cornell, you've been challenged. You've had a rigorous program that's been very demanding and under extremely exceptional circumstances. You cannot succeeded in this accomplishment without talent, focus, and perseverance. Support from your families, friends, classmates have also been essential to your success, and they should be recognized as well.
At this time, statistics and data science students need a lot of tools. They have to become experts in statistical analysis, mathematics, computer science, optimization. Students also need to become experts in substantive areas and areas of other disciplines, such as biology, computational biology, genetics, political science, law, economics, finance, climate science just to name a few.
The work of our graduate students-- the graduating students reflect the diversity of our subject and its interdisciplinary nature. This is just the beginning for you. Today's ceremony is called the commencement. Commencement means that it's beginning.
This is a new chapter for you, and you'll have to enjoy a lot of changes as you leave Ithaca. As ambassadors of physical science, your skills will influence how the new data driven economy and data driven society will change. And you'll have a great hand in its future.
We faculty are extremely fortunate to have such outstanding students, such as yourself. We're proud-- we're very proud that you'll be representative of Cornell, and we look forward to following your careers and looking at the impact that you've made on society. May you revel in the search for clarity, understanding, and truth.
Keep your eyes wide open and recognize that opportunities will inevitably cross your path. Weather challenges by understanding that there are obstacles that you have to be resilient and overcome. Most of all, treat others at all stages in life with respect and dignity. Once again, congratulations and best wishes on your continued success.
Now on with the ceremony. Today, we have three types of degrees. We have bachelor's and master's degrees that are all about applying statistics and data science to multifaceted applications. We also have a PhD degree, which is all about figuring out how to develop those applications and how to understand those methodologies. And the PhD degree is a culmination of years of work.
As our students process and your names have been called, on stage handshakes are optional. If you prefer not to shake hands, just across your hands and let people-- let the presenter know that. Elbow bumps and fist bumps are also an option.
So let's start with the PhD students, and let me hand things over to James Booth, our director of Graduate Studies.
[APPLAUSE]
JAMES BOOTH: Hello, everyone. The PhD is the most advanced degree that's offered in the United States. In statistics, it involves two years of advanced coursework followed by three years of intensive research into a specialized topic leading to peer reviewed publications.
This year, I'm very honored to present eight of our graduates. Two of them, I think, graduated last year, but we did not have a ceremony last year for obvious reasons. I'm going to call them all out by name and read the title of their dissertation. You'll understand why I have to read the titles, and I'll tell you what they're planning to do next after which their advisors or their committee member will perform the hooding ceremony to confer their degree.
I have a list of names, but I'm not sure if I have them in the same order that you're all standing in so. And since you're all wearing masks, it's a little difficult to identify you. So why don't you all come and stand in line and then.
So one of last year's graduates Mike Bing. His advisors are Marten Wegkamp and Professor Florentina Bunea. The title of his dissertation was Structured Latent Factor Models, Identifiability, Estimation, Inference, and Prediction. And Mike will be starting a position as an assistant professor at the University of Toronto later this summer.
[APPLAUSE]
FLORENTINA BUNEA: I don't know how do we do this.
JAMES BOOTH: Just put it over his head.
FLORENTINA BUNEA: OK.
[APPLAUSE]
JAMES BOOTH: This is, again, out of order. But next is Yi Su, whose advisor is Professor Thorsten Joachims. The title of her dissertation is Off Policy Evaluation and Learning for Interactive Systems. And she will be starting a position at Google, Google Brain.
[APPLAUSE]
So Mike, why don't you move over a bit, and then the next person goes by. Next is Yuxuan Xiao, whose advisor is Professor Madeleine Udell.
The title of his dissertation is Gaussian Copula for Mixed Data with Missing Values, Model, Estimation, and Imputation. And Mike will be working for Two Sigma Investments. Sorry, Yuxuan.
Next is Tao Zhang. His advisors are David Rupert and Kengo Kato. His title is Topics in Modern Regression Modeling, and Tao will be working for us in finance for a hedge fund.
[APPLAUSE]
Next is Seth Strimas-Mackey. His advisors are Martin Wegkamp and Florentina Bunea. The title of his dissertation is Latent Structures in Linear Prediction and Corporate Comparison. And Seth will be working as a data scientist at Google.
[APPLAUSE]
Yaosheng Xi. Their advisor is Professor Jim Dai. Her title is WWTA, Load Balancing for Parallel Service Systems with Heterogeneous Servers and Multiscale Heavy Traffic Limits for Generalized Jepsen Networks. You can understand why I need to read these. She will be starting a job as an applied scientist at Amazon.
[APPLAUSE]
Up next is Peter Wu. His advisor, unfortunately, couldn't be here today, David Matteson. And so one of his committee members, Dr. Marty Wells will perform the hooding. The title of his dissertation is Advances in Adaptive and Deep Bayesian States-Based Models. And he will be working for Capital Market Company in Chicago.
[APPLAUSE]
And last but not least Grace Deng. The title of her dissertation is Generative Models and Bayesian Spillover Graphs for Dynamic Networks. And Grace will be also working for Google.
[APPLAUSE]
So next, for nearly 20 years the professional Master's degree in statistics has offered a world class training in applied statistics and data analysis and preparation for the 21st century workplace. The MPS degree provides a solid foundation in theoretical statistics, as well as a broad training in applied statistics and a real data project. Now the MPS director, Doctor Xiaolong Yang will present the MPS graduates.
[APPLAUSE]
XIAOLONG YANG: Dear MPS students, families, and the friends, today, we all together will come together to witness a very important-- sorry, today we come together to witness one of the most important life milestones of our graduates. We celebrate their achievements, their graduation from our rigorous MPS program in applied statistics.
This is a very significant academic achievement. We're all proud of you. Today, we have graduates from last year, December 2021, this may, and future graduates December 2022. So first, let's recognize and welcome the May graduates.
[READING NAMES]
[INAUDIBLE] who is our December 2021 graduation. Welcome back.
[READING NAMES]
So now is our December 2022 graduates.
[READING NAMES]
OK. Thank you. Oh, yeah, one more. OK. Very good. OK, so today I would like to also announce the MPS project awards. So the capstone projects are one of the most important part of our MPS education. So students use these opportunities to work with industry using the knowledge and skills they learned from this program.
They all did a very good job. Based on the nominations of the project advisors, today I would like to announce the project awards. We have three best MPS project awards and the one honorable mention award.
So first, let's start with the honorable mention award. The honorable mention award goes to project team 11. The team members are Yimin Chen, Minxuan Hu, Miranda Lund, Weichen Zang, Wenzhuo Zhao. Their project title is Statistical Evaluation of Ithaca Crashes sponsored by city of Ithaca and advised by Dr. Sreyoshi Das. Congratulations.
[APPLAUSE]
Now, let's go to the best project awards. So these awards are novel awards. They used novel analysis, are excellent projects. There's no specific order.
The first best project award goes to team two. The team members are Qingyi Fang, Sukriti Poddar, Toshihiro Tokuyama, Xiangnan Zheng. The project title is Identifying Spending Trajectories for Medicare Patients and The Factors that Affect the Pattern. It was sponsored by Trinity Partners and advised by Dr. Martin Wells. Congratulations.
Best project award number two goes to team five. Team members are Jimi He, Joo Hyun Kim, Yizhou Liu, Namratha Sathish, Shuang Wu. The appropriate title is Critical Risk Index for Spaced Weather. The project was sponsored and advised by Dr. Matteson, David Matteson. Congratulations
[APPLAUSE]
Now the last or the third best project award word goes to team number 15. The team members are Ziyi Li, Tsz Fei Luk, Yifan Qian, Zhe Song. Their project title is Machine Learning Methods to Predict State of Charge and the Battery Remaining Life in Electric Aircraft. It was sponsored by NASA and advised by Dr. Xianglong Yang.
Congratulations. Thank you all very much.
MARTIN WELLS: Thank you, Dr. Yang. Cornell offers two undergraduate degrees in statistics, the major in biometry and statistics in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the major statistical science in the College of Arts and Sciences.
Typically, this event we announce Latin honors. Unfortunately, this year they haven't process them due to various issues within the respective colleges. Those who will be receiving them, they're to be congratulated, and you'll hear about this in the next coming weeks. Today, Joe Guinness, my good friend, is going to announce along with Melissa Smith.
JOE GUINNESS: [READING NAMES]
I'm pleased to announce the class of 2022. Let's give them one more round of applause.
[APPLAUSE]
MARTIN WELLS: Thank you, Joe and Melissa. So this concludes our time together. Join us on the other side of the curtain. We're going to have a reception.
You can meet and greet friends and the faculty, and it'd be great to meet some of the family. Thank you for coming. This ends today's ceremony.
It ends one journey for you at Cornell but begins another journey for the rest of your life. Savor the moment this weekend. Enjoy your time and cherish it. Congratulations to all the graduates.
[APPLAUSE]
Cornell’s commencement weekend was May 27-29, 2022 and was held in-person. Statistics and Data Science was pleased to invite our degree candidates and their families to the hybrid graduation ceremony that took place from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, May 27, 2022, in Barton Hall.
