Our Team of Experts
Translational Data Science Unit Faculty

Dr. Amy Wagler
Data Analytics Lab Director
Associate Professor
Dr. Wagler has expertise in generalized linear models and simultaneous inference of quantities resulting from these models. She has worked on projects which applied generalized linear models employing latent variables for handling complex multivariate data sets.

Dr. Jongwha Chang
Resource Scientist
Associate Professor

Dr. Suneel B. Chatla
Resource Scientist
Assistant Professor
Dr. Chatla's research focuses on nonparametric methods for dependent and high-dimensional data.

Dr. Asim Kumer Dey
Resource Scientist
Assistant Professor
Dr. Dey’s research focuses broadly on statistical methods for complex networks, topological and geometric data analysis, data depth methods, extreme value modeling, and their applications to power systems, critical infrastructures, blockchain data analytics, environment, epidemiology, and finance.

Dr. Behzad Djafari-Rouhani
Resource Scientist
Professor
Dr. Djafari-Rouhani's research focuses on analysis, functional analysis and nonlinear functional analysis.

Dr. Art Duval
Resource Scientist
Professor
Dr. Duval's research focuses on algebraic combinatorics.

Dr. Jorge Ibarra, MD
Adjunct Clinical Affiliate

Dr. Ming-Ying Leung
Resource Scientist
Professor
Dr. Leung's research centers on probabilistic modeling and statistical bioinformatics, focusing on the applications of Markov models, Poisson approximations, and the scan statistics to biomolecular sequence analysis. Her current research involves the prediction of RNA secondary structures in viral genomes, and posttranslational modification sites in proteins.

Dr. Oralia Loza
Resource Scientist
Associate Professor
Dr. Loza is trained in statistics (MA) and epidemiology (PhD) and teaches courses in these areas for the UTEP College of Health Sciences’ undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs. Their research interests are focused on substance abuse and risks behaviors for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among high-risk populations on the U.S.-Mexico border region including Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ+) and other sexual and gender minority populations. These projects involve community-based participation and quantitative data analysis using statistical software, such as SPSS, for analysis.

Dr. Abhijit Mandal
Resource Scientist
Assistant Professor
Dr. Mandal's research interests are robust inference, nonparametric statistics, big data analysis, genetics, MCMC, signal processing.

Dr. M. Christina Mariani
Resource Scientist
Professor, Department Chair
Dr. Mariani's research centers on nonlinear partial differential equations, mathematical finance, mathematical physics.

Dr. Osvaldo Morera
Resource Scientist
Professor

Dr. Michael Pokojovy
Resource Scientist
Assistant Professor
Dr. Pokojovy's research interests are manifold. They include, but are not limited to, nonparametric and robust techniques with application to big data analytics, statistical quality control, data mining, computational statistics, design and control of stochastic spatiotemporal systems, functional data analysis, etc. He has many years of successful experience with statistical and scientific computing and programming in R, Matlab, C/C++, etc. Dr. Pokojovy also has a strong background in various areas of applied mathematics.

Dr. Ori Rosen
Resource Scientist
Professor
Dr. Rosen has been part of the Statistical Consulting Lab since 2005. Research interests include: bayesian computational methods, ecological inference, time series, functional data analysis.

Dr. Emil Schwab
Resource Scientist
Professor
Dr. Scwab's research interests are arithmetic functions, inverse semigroups, Möbius inversion, special categories.

Dr. Granville Sewell
Resource Scientist
Professor
Dr. Sewell's researcn interests are in the area of numerical analysis.

Dr. Naijun Sha
Resource Scientist
Associate Professor
Dr. Sha has been part of the Statistical Consulting Laboratory since 2002. Research interests include: classification and clustering, variable selection technique, bayesian approaches, bioinformatics.

Dr. Xiaogang Su
Resource Scientist
Professor
Dr. Su's research interests include: tree-based methods, variable selection, survival analysis, causal inference, machine learning, data mining.

Dr. Son-Young Yi
Resource Scientist
Associate Professor
Dr. Yi's research interests include: numerical methods for partial differential equations, multiscale analysis.

Dr. Xianyi Zeng
Resource Scientist
Assistant Professor
Dr. Zeng's research interests include: numerical partial differential equations, multi-physics computation, high performance computing.