2021–2022 Presidential Award for Faculty Excellence: Early Career Achievement

Yang Liu

Yang Liu, Ph.D., assistant professor of mathematics and statistics, received the 2021–2022 Presidential Award for Excellence: Early Career Achievement for his incredible research contributions, some of which have been published in highly prestigious journals. He has also received over $80,000 in grants from the National Institutes of Health during his four-year career at Wright State.

Since joining the College of Science and Mathematics in 2018, Liu has published eight papers, one of which was published in Biometrika, a top statistics journal. He has also published research in Annals of Applied Statistics, one of the top journals of applied statistics, and Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, a prestigious journal in statistical computation. In many of his papers, Liu is the first or second author.

Liu is also actively involved in five externally pending proposals as a biostatistician. His colleagues praise his research prowess and grant funding, which many say is highly impressive for someone so early in their research career.

“Having grant funding at this level is atypical,” said Kathy Engisch, Ph.D., the former interim dean of the College of Science and Mathematics. “Liu’s research has made very substantial achievements for an early-career statistician and has made excellent interdisciplinary advances with life science collaborations here at Wright State University.”

Liu has also made multiple contributions to Wright State’s teaching mission. He receives outstanding praise from his student evaluations and many of his students and peers applaud his clarity and excellent communication style. Liu was responsible for redesigning Introduction to R with Application to Biology. He has also mentored undergraduate and Ph.D. students.

Liu’s colleagues call his teaching extraordinary and commend him for his active role in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. He is one of four professional-rank faculty in the program, which has healthy enrollment at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and therefore grants Liu a high level of responsibility.

Along with his teaching and research prowess, Liu serves as a reviewer for four statistical journals and provides statistical consulting services. Additionally, Liu has served on the Statistics Committee and Colloquium Committee in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, the Comprehensive Exam committee, and two search committees for tenure track positions in 2019 and 2020.