Statistical Consulting Team
Administration and Faculty Advisors
Jarad Niemi
Director of Consulting
Dr. Jarad Niemi is the Director of Statistical Consulting and a Professor in the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University. He earned his Ph.D. in Statistical Science from Duke University and specializes in Bayesian methods and computational statistics with applications in epidemiology, biology, and environmental science.
Rebekah Scott
Consulting Manager
Rebekah is the Consulting Manager for the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University. She recently graduated with a M.S. in Statistics from Iowa State University. She’s completed two summer internships at Los Alamos National Laboratory and has expertise in statistical computing, experimental design, and clustering methods.
Ulrike Genschel
Affiliated Faculty
Dr. Ulrike Genschel is a Professor in the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Dortmund. Her research includes robust statistics with applications in STEM education, forensic science, and biomedical fields. She also consults across agriculture, biology, and nutrition.
Somak Dutta
Affiliated Faculty
Dr. Somak Dutta is an Associate Professor of Statistics at Iowa State University, specializing in spatial statistics, high-dimensional methods, and machine learning. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata.
Xiang Ji
Affiliated Faculty
Dr. Xiang Ji is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Iowa State University. He earned his Ph.D. from North Carolina State University. His research focuses on every component of statistical phylogenetics, from model development and advanced inference techniques to under-the-hood parallel computation libraries. His efforts have one central goal: solving biological questions.
Chong Wang
Affiliated Faculty
Dr. Chong Wang is a Professor of Statistics and Veterinary Diagnostic and Production Animal Medicine at Iowa State University, with a Ph.D. in Statistics and a minor in Epidemiology from Cornell University. His research focuses on biostatistics, epidemiology, and network meta-analysis.
Graduate Student Consultants
Ben Jacobs
(CALS)
Ben is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics. He has previous work experience as a Biostatistician at the Medical College of Wisconsin and some of his areas of expertise include linear models, Bayesian methods, and biological applications.
Poramate "Anthony" Nakkirt
(CALS, Business)
Anthony is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics. His research interests and expertise span causal discovery, graphical models, linear models, optimization methods, experimental design, and applied statistics.
Sam Olson
(CALS, Engineering)
Sam is a second-year PhD student in Department of Statistics with experience in survey analysis, experimental design, and multivariate methods. He is passionate about data literacy and has worked with the U.S. Forest Service, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and in financial market research.
Chunwei "William" Sun
(CALS)
William is a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics with strong training in statistical modeling, Bayesian analysis, and applied data science. His experience includes generalized linear models, hierarchical modeling, Monte Carlo methods, and regression analysis for real-world data applications.
Anyesha Ray
(CALS)
Anyesha is a statistical consultant for the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University. She graduated from ISU in 2024 with a M.S. in Statistics. Since then, she has been working with the Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence and has expertise in Bayesian models and forensic statistics.
Yanqi Zhang
(Veterinary Medicine)
Yanqi is a fifth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics. His research centers on statistical methodology with applications in biomedical sciences. His areas of expertise include network meta-analysis, linear and generalized linear mixed models, and R programming.
Yangyifan Lu
(Veterinary Medicine)
Yangyifan is a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Statistics. Before joining Iowa State University, he earned a master's degree from North Carolina State University. His current research interest is meta-analysis.