Virginia Tech's Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis Annual Report 2015-16

This annual report summarizes the activities of LISA, Virginia Tech’s Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis, during the fall and spring semesters of the 2015-16 academic year. It does not include activities or numbers during Summer 2016. LISA statistical collaborators helped 1217 researchers around Virginia Tech (the most ever for LISA for the fall and spring semesters of an academic year) for the three main services of Collaboration Meetings, Walk-in Consulting, and educational Short Courses (Figure 1).

Highlights of 2015-16:

- In October 2015, LISA hosted a campus-wide symposium to celebrate World Statistics Day.

- In March 2016, Dr. Chris Franck, LISA Assistant Director, was hired as a new tenure-track assistant professor in the Statistics Department, to begin August 2016.

- In March 2016, Statistics Department Head Dr. Ronald Fricker decided that LISA would be restructured; the contract of Dr. Eric Vance, LISA Director, would be terminated as of May 9, 2016; Dr. Chris Franck, LISA Assistant Director, would serve as interim director during Summer 2016; and a new director would be hired for the 2016-17 academic year.

- In May 2016, Tonya Pruitt, the LISA Administrative Specialist, announced that she was leaving the Department of Statistics to pursue another opportunity at Virginia Tech.

- For the sixth year in a row, LISA was featured in an invited session at the American Statistical Association’s (ASA) Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM). This year’s invited session was “The Extraordinary Power of Statistical Collaboration.”