I’m Leo Duan. I’m a statistician and an assistant professor at University of Florida since 2018.
My research aims to build new statistical methods, theory and computational toolboxes for addressing motivating application problems in neuroscience, engineering, and transportation science. The main statistical interest is in modeling the combinatorial objects that are routinely used in science and engineering (e.g., tree graphs, clustering, signal pathways, integer flow networks, etc.). Our research generates interesting solutions at the intersection between combinatorics, optimization, and Bayesian statistics.
My CV can be found here (updated 2024 Oct)
I am running for the Treasurer position in ISBA Bayesian Computation (BayesComp) Section. Please vote if you’re an ISBA member!
Jason Xu and I are preparing to teach a short course “Harnessing Optimization in Bayesian Inference”, likely in 2025 at one of the national conferences. Stay tuned for further update.
Department of Statistics at UF is hosting the next Winter Workshop, themed on “Computational Methods in Bayesian Statistics”, between January 17-18, 2025. The registration is now open, and we have some travel support for young researchers.
See attached link: https://stat.ufl.edu/winter-workshop/2025-computational-methods-in-bayesian-statistics/
My recent research focuses on the following areas (listing recent works):
Optimization & Bayes:
2024 UF CLAS Fellowship for Doctoral Student Supervised
2023-2026 NSF-ATD: Geospatial Modeling and Risk Mitigation for Human Movement Dynamics under Hurricane Threats (PI)
2022 UF CLAS Faculty Travel Award
2022-2023 UFII SEED Funding Award
2021 UF Statistics Faculty Award for Doctoral Student Supervised
2018 NeurIPS Bayesian Non-parametrics Award
2015 ASA Paper Competition Award in Section on Bayesian Statistical Science
2014 Woodside Foundation Award for Contribution in Biostatistics and Epidemiology Research
August 2024, Joint Statistical Meetings, Portland OR
June 2024, International Symposium on Nonparametric Statistics, Braga Portugal
January 2024, Seminar Talk at Duke University, Department of Statistical Science
December 2023, Seminar Talk at University of Washington, Department of Statistics
May 2023, Seminar Talk at Harvard University, Department of Biostatistics
January 2023, Seminar Talk at Texas A&M University, Department of Statistics
October 2022, International Conference on Bayesian Nonparametrics in Puerto Varas, Chile
Cheng Zeng (Expected to graduate in 2024)
Yu Zheng
Yaozhi Yang
Maoran Xu (Assistant Professor, Indiana University)
Eleni Dilma (Biostatistician, Food and Drug Administration)
Edric Tam (Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University)
PhD student interested in working with us? Send me an email! li dot duan at ufl dot edu
For the up-to-date list of publications and pre-prints, see https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4i5UQLAAAAAJ&hl=en