Alumni Spotlight

  • I am a statistically trained biomedical data scientist who develops statistically rigorous and computationally scalable machine-learning methods and open-source software to integratively analyze population-scale multi-omics data, working in the intersection of population health and genomics study...
  • Choosing the MS in Stats program at UIUC was one of the best decisions I made in my early career. I previously had full-time work experience in a global digital marketing company, which introduced me to the analytics world, but it was the graduate school experience at UIUC that developed me into a...
  • I came to UIUC after receiving my BS in Mathematics from Bradley University ('16). At the time I wasn't completely sure what I wanted to do, but I have always appreciated data and found that my Statistics courses were consistently my favorites so I decided to work towards my Masters in Statistics....
  • My name is Karle Flanagan and I am a Senior Instructor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  I have taught introductory statistics to over 20,000 students at UIUC since Spring of 2014.  I am currently still teaching introductory...
  • I started at the University of Illinois as an engineering major and after taking STAT 400 with Professor Stepanov I quickly realized that was the field for me. I was drawn to the practical applications of statistics in a world where data was becoming ever more prevalent. After taking the two SAS...
  • After beginning in the College of Business and participating in a job shadow, I realized Finance and Accounting was not what I was interested in pursuing – I wanted to research and develop financial metrics and models, perform deep dive analysis to identify why certain trends were occurring, and...
  • Shree graduated in May 2015 with a Bachelor of Science in Statistics and Economics with minors in Computer Science and Mathematics. Presently, he is working as a Product Lead 2 at Deloitte & Touche LLP out of their Chicago office. He is part of the Product Development team at Deloitte and leads...
  • Sheila Gudehithlu is an Instructor in the Math and Statistics Department at Loyola University at Chicago. At Loyola, Sheila teaches Introduction to Statistics to students who are in non-math related majors. And Introduction to Biostatistics to Biology related majors. Sheila received her Bachelor's...
  • Jeffrey Liu is a 2013 PhD recipient from the Department of Statistics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He is currently a Data Scientist at Google working on search quality systems and analytics for the tech giant search engine.  What is your favorite part about your current...
  • Tia Mark's first job out of college after graduating with her Bachelor's degree in Statistics in 2015 was for a consulting company, Mu Sigma, where she lived in India for six months and was able to travel all over Asia. Currently, Tia is a Business...
  • I'm a biostatistician at Sanofi. The best part of my job is working with talented colleagues and applying statistics to clinical trials for drug development. My advisor, Dr. Xuming He, not only guided me in dissertation, but also helped me to gain precious experience by working as a statistical...
  • Tereza developed an interest in statistics during her undergraduate studies in Cambridge, from where she graduated with a BA in the Mathematical Tripos in 1998, before moving on to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for graduate study. She was awarded her MSc from the University of...
  • Gang Chen is a 2012 PhD graduate currently working as a research orientated software development engineer for A9.com in Silicon Valley. A9 is an Amazon company located in Palo Alto, California that manages search and advertising technologies for Amazon and other clients. If you've done a search on...
  • Huitian Jiao is currently a Data Scientist at Microsoft working on intelligent features for Office such as developing clustering/classification algorithms to generate relevant topics for end users in Python and Azure. She received her...
  • I am a Product Manager for Snap (Snapchat). My team and I focus on the machine learning ad systems to ensure that most relevant ads are shown to each user. My college education began at Illinois in the statistics department pursuing a degree in statistics & computer science. I always enjoyed...
  • Studying statistics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign provided me with the education and resources necessary to help jump-start my career in today's data-driven economy. The department's active relationship with the university's Research Park allowed me the opportunity to apply my...
  • Choosing Statistics graduate program at University of Illinois is one of the best decisions I have ever made. The combination of theoretical and practical courses, has equipped me with not only solid foundation on Statistics, but also hands-on experience solving real world problems. The program...
  • Chris Lalla received his Bachelor of Science and Master of Science Degree in Statistics from the University of Illinois in 2011 and 2012, respectively.  He is currently a Data Scientist – Project Lead at Zurich North America, which is a Commercial Insurance Company with its’ headquarters the...
  • In the months leading up to the completion of my undergraduate degree in statistics from the University of Illinois, I was faced with a decision regarding my future. Having had an exceptional group of professors and an amazing cohort of students to work with and learn from, I realized that the U of...
  • I came to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as a math major, but knew that being a researcher or teacher was not for me! I have always had a love for sports especially baseball (Go Cubs!) and as a kid starting keeping score of Cubs games whenever they were on TV. I never...
  • As an international student, I came to Champaign in the summer of 2012 for Master program in Statistics. Currently I am employed with Amazon as a data scientist, formerly with Zillow. Two years of studying experience in the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign definitely prepared me well (and...
  • I'm Lara Troszak, I graduated from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in Winter 2012. I now work as a statistician at the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Healthcare System. My studies in statistics at the University of Illinois led me to obtain a Masters in...
  • One of the most appealing aspects of statistics for me was the realization that I could apply analytics and statistical learnings to just about any area of interest—finance, insurance, health, or sports, to name a few. Through my statistics courses at Illinois, I gained a solid understanding of...