On behalf of WNAR and the WNAR Award Committee, we would like to congratulate Debashis Ghosh as the recipient of the 2025 WNAR Outstanding Impact Award and Lectureship. Congratulations, Dr. Ghosh!
The WNAR of the IBS Outstanding Impact Award and Lectureship was established in 2021 to recognize an individual or a team, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, nationality or citizenship, who has made a significant impact on our society through service and/or research in development and application of statistical, mathematical, and data science theory and methods in the biomedical and environmental sciences. For example, awardees may be individuals or team whose research and/or service in biometrics has made a direct impact on serving underrepresented communities, promoting social justice, addressing environmental issues, or transforming scientific practice, and can comprise either a single contribution of extraordinary merit or an outstanding aggregate of contributions.
Dr. Debashis Ghosh is is Professor of the Department of Biostatistics and Informatics at the Colorado School of Public Health. Dr. Ghosh's nomination package clearly demonstrated his highly impactful research contributions to the fields of biometrics and science at large. He is specifically recognized for his statistical innovation and excellence in the areas of recurrent event analysis and genomics, for rigorous evaluation of kernal machines used in machine learning, and his contributions to the development of the popular cancer genomics database,
ONCOMINE. WNAR is very proud of its outstanding members, represented by Dr. Ghosh.
Congratulations as well to our other nominees, all of whom were outstanding and highly impressive in their contributions.
As a recipient of the award, Dr. Ghosh will give a talk in the WNAR Outstanding Impact Award Lecture at the JSM on Thursday, August 7, 2025, 10:30am. More information about the lecture can be found below.
WNAR members, please plan to submit nomination materials for next year’s award in Fall 2025. We look forward to recognizing our outstanding members with this honor. More information about the award process and upcoming deadlines can be found on the WNAR award website.
WNAR Outstanding Impact Award Lecture at the JSM
Session 1414 Thursday, August 7, 2025, 10:30AM-12:20PM
Music City Center; Room: CC-104B
Title: Distances and Sufficiency in the Age of AI
Speaker: Dr. Debashis Ghosh (University of Colorado, School of Public Health)
Abstract: With the advent of big data and large-scale computational technologies, increasing focus has been paid to the development of methodology in statistics, machine learning and data science. In particular, the talk these days focuses on models such as deep learning and generative AI. I will discuss two very basic concepts in statistics, distance and sufficiency, and describe our past work in this area as well as use them as guiding principles for how to study and think critically about current AI tools.
More information about the award and past awardees can be found on the award's website.
