Rice statistics PhD students win best paper awards from ASA

Zijian Zeng, Joe Feldman and Brian King to receive prizes during Joint Statistical Meetings in August.

Zijian Zeng, Joe Feldman and Brian King

Three fourth-year doctoral students in statistics (STAT) at Rice have won 2022 best paper awards from the American Statistical Association (ASA).  

Zijian Zeng’s paper, “Bayesian image-on-scalar regression with a spatial global-local spike-and-slab prior,” won in the ASA’s Mental Health Statistics Section. His paper was co-authored with his advisers, Meng Li, Noah Harding Assistant Professor, and Marina Vannucci, Noah Harding Professor.

In the ASA’s Health Policy Statistics Section, Joe Feldman won for “Bayesian Data Synthesis and the Utility-Risk Trade-Off for Mixed Epidemiological Data,” which has been accepted for publication in Annals of Applied Statistics.

Brian King won in the ASA’s Bayesian Statistical Science Section for the paper "Warped Dynamic Linear Models for Time Series of Counts.” King declined the award from the Business and Economic Statistics Section because students may accept only one award each year.

Feldman’s and King’s papers were co-authored by their adviser at Rice, Dan Kowal, Dobelman Family Assistant Professor in STAT.

The students will formally receive their awards and cash prizes during the ASA’s Joint Statistical Meetings to be held Aug. 6-11 in Washington, D.C.