Virginia Tech Ph.D. students holding the Fall Technical Conference banner
Virginia Tech Ph.D. students holding the Fall Technical Conference banner

Virginia Tech Statistics Students and Alumni Make Their Mark at the 2026 Fall Technical Conference

Congratulations to the Virginia Tech statistics graduate students, faculty and alumni who presented research, earned awards and helped lead the 68th Fall Technical Conference, held Oct. 6-8 in Charlotte, North Carolina!

During the conference’s two poster sessions, graduate students presented research that demonstrated statistics’ importance across industries and topics, including:

●       Becky Catlett — grizzly bear scavenging in Yellowstone

●       Vu Huynh — reliability testing for AI-generated code

●       Leah Jones — monitoring machine learning models

●       Colby Stakun-Pickering — improving estimation methods

●       Amy Vennos — calibrating probability predictions

In technical sessions, recent statistics Ph.D. graduate Simin Zheng shared a framework for stress-testing AI systems’ reliability. Statistics Ph.D. students Courtney Kyger and Jared Clark also presented, with Kyger showing a faster approach to optimizing computer simulations and Clark a model for analyzing failure times in large datasets. Jennifer Van Mullekom, professor of practice in statistics, and Anne Driscoll, collegiate associate professor of statistics, introduced CROSSVALI, a method for prompting AI tools to assist with data analysis.

Statistical Applications and Innovations Group collaborators Clark, Stakun-Pickering and Vennos attended the conference with funding from their 2026 John Bartko Ph.D. ’62 Awards, which recognize graduate students who excel in statistical collaboration, communication and consulting.

Jones, Huynh, and industrial and systems engineering Ph.D. student Shih-Han Huang received Student & Early Career Grant Awards, which help fund travel to present at the conference. Kexin Xie, a spring 2026 statistics Ph.D. alumna now at JMP, received an award in the early career category.

Virginia Tech faculty and alumni were also recognized throughout the conference:

●       Willis Jensen, a Virginia Tech statistics Ph.D. alumnus and associate professor at Brigham Young University, received the Gerald J. Hahn Q&P Achievement Award and delivered the opening address.

●       Xinwei Deng, professor of statistics, and Laura Freeman, research associate professor of statistics and deputy director of the Virginia Tech National Security Institute, received the 2026 SPES Award for their work on a statistical framework for validating AI systems.

●       Annie Booth, assistant professor of statistics and a Virginia Tech statistics Ph.D. alumna, served as the 2026 general conference chair.

Congratulations again to this year’s attendees and award recipients, whose hard work did not go unnoticed!