Featured Speakers

Lorin Crawford, Microsoft Research

Lorin Crawford is a principal researcher at Microsoft Research. His research program focuses on developing interpretable machine learning and AI algorithms to study how genetic effects and gene-by-environmental interactions influence complex traits and disease progression. As part of this work, he co-leads Project Ex Vivo, a collaborative effort between Microsoft and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard focused on defining, engineering, and targeting cell states in cancer. Crawford has been featured on Forbes 30 Under 30 and The Root 100 Most Influential African Americans lists. He has also received an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a Packard Foundation Fellowship for Science and Engineering, a Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies Emerging Leader Award, and the Annie T. Randall Innovator Award from the ASA Biometrics Section.

Crawford earned his PhD from the department of statistical science at Duke University and Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from Clark Atlanta University.

Francis J. (Frank) Alexander

Frank Alexander is the director for AI strategy and research with a national security focus at Argonne National Laboratory, where he has worked for the past two years. He has more than 30 years of experience at US Department of Energy laboratories, including Los Alamos, Brookhaven, and Lawrence Livermore, where he held various scientific and leadership roles in computational and information science. He holds a PhD in physics from Rutgers University, and his current research interests include artificial intelligence, computational science, and decision-making under uncertainty.

Rui (Sammi) Tang, Astellas Pharmaceuticals

As senior vice president and global head of quantitative sciences and evidence generation at Astellas Pharmaceuticals, Rui (Sammi) Tang leads the company’s global data and evidence strategy across quantitative analytics, epidemiology, real-world evidence, biostatistics, programming, medical writing, scientific communication, data systems and enablement, and data management. She is at the forefront of applying generative AI in regulatory and clinical documentation, AI/ML-powered analytics, and external data to optimize study design and development efficiency. Tang also serves as site head of the Astellas Life Sciences Center in Cambridge, advancing the site’s mission by enabling collaboration across internal teams and strengthening ties with incubator labs, biotech start-ups, and academic institutions. She also serves on the American Statistical Association Committee for Data Science & AI and is a co-founder of DahShu, a global nonprofit advancing data science research and education that has more than 5,000 members.

Xuming He, Washington University in St. Louis

Xuming He earned his doctoral degree in statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He embarked on his academic journey as a lecturer at the National University of Singapore before joining the faculty at UIUC. In 2011, he moved to the University of Michigan as the H.C. Carver Collegiate Professor of Statistics. In 2023, he assumed the role of the inaugural chair of the department of statistics and data science at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the past president of the International Statistical Institute and currently serves as joint editor of the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B.

An elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Statistical Association, and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, He received the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Chinese Statistical Association in 2015, the Distinguished Faculty Achievement Award from the University of Michigan, and a Rackham Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award in 2021. He is also the 2025 Gottfried E. Noether Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Statistical Association for his outstanding contributions to the theory, methodology, and applications to nonparametric statistics and was awarded the Carver Medal from the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Founders Award from the American Statistical Association for his decades-long leadership in the profession.

Jeffrey Morris, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Jeffrey Morris is the George S. Pepper Professor of Public Health and Preventive Medicine and professor and chief of the division of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and professor of statistics and data science at the Wharton School. He earned his PhD in 2000 in statistics from Texas A&M University and spent 19 years in the department of biostatistics at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, before moving to the University of Pennsylvania in 2019. His primary research involves the development of flexible statistical and machine learning tools to extract knowledge from complex data from emerging technologies, including wearable devices, imaging, and multi-platform genomics. He engages in interdisciplinary research with a focus on oncology, including developing a device to classify colorectal tumors into molecular subtypes and devising a new blood biomarker index for liver cancer. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and Institute for Mathematical Statistics and has served numerous leadership roles in the statistical community. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, he has become heavily involved in scientific communication with the media and social media, working to help others understand key statistical concepts and debunking misinformation.