Annual Report 2008.pdf - SAMSI

Continuing Collaborations: Helen Zhang, Yufeng Liu and Nicoleta Serban
1. Program Involvement:
Which SAMSI program(s) have you been involved with and at what level(s)? (e.g., “been doing
active research on …” or “just went to a tutorial/workshop to learn about that area which is new
to me”)
Doing active research on Multivariate Extremes-Methodology
Attending the group meeting on Multivariate Extremes-Applications in order to apply my theory
in the real applications.
2. Interactions with Other Institutions:
Describe your interactions with other institutions while at SAMSI. (e.g., a Triangle university,
NISS or CRSC)
Collaborating with Prof. Helen Zhang from NC-State University and Prof. Yufeng Liu from
UNC-Chapel Hill on two papers about variable selection in the semiparametric models.
Collaborating with Prof. Moulinath Banerjee at Umich and Postdoc Fellow Jayanta Pal at
SAMSI on one paper about variable selection under shape constraints.
Collaborating with Prof. Nicoleta Serban at Georgia Tech on one paper about Hierarchical
Functional Data Modelling. I met her when she visited SAMSI as a visiting faculty in the fall
semester of 2007.
3. High Points at SAMSI:
What have been the high points of your SAMSI experience?
I have expanded my research area to the field of Extreme Value by attending the regular working
group at SAMSI under the guidance of Prof. Richard Smith.
I have met some of my collaborators when they visited SAMSI.
Thanks to the Postdoc Lunch, I have got a lot of useful job hunting suggestions.
4. Suggestions for Improvement:
How could your SAMSI experience have been improved?
5. Mentoring:
SAMSI aims to provide solid mentoring of Postdocs. How successful has this been in your case?
It is extremely successful for my case.
First, I got extensive mentoring from Prof. Nell Sedransk when I am on the job market this year.
Her suggestions are proven to be very helpful for landing since I have got 9 on-site interviews
and 5 tenure track offers.
Second, under the guidance of Prof. Richard Smith, I got extensive exposure to the area of
Extreme Value Theory and am doing some related research topic.