Ray Bai
@raybai07.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Statistics at George Mason University, French bulldog owner, and pop culture enthusiast. Any views expressed on here are my own, not my employer's. 👨🏫📊 📚👨🍳🏳️🌈 raybai.net
Reposted by Ray Bai
If you're following the #UNL #statistics saga (proposed for elimination based on bad stats), you might find the seminar we gave yesterday interesting... youtu.be/fUk2R0UYWpA
It was weird to rail against someone for an hour, but strangely cathartic, and the #datavis seems to have been effective?
It was weird to rail against someone for an hour, but strangely cathartic, and the #datavis seems to have been effective?
University of Nebraska-Lincoln Department of Statistics seminar "The Metrics" on November 6, 2025
YouTube video by Chris Bilder
youtu.be
November 7, 2025 at 2:33 PM
If you're following the #UNL #statistics saga (proposed for elimination based on bad stats), you might find the seminar we gave yesterday interesting... youtu.be/fUk2R0UYWpA
It was weird to rail against someone for an hour, but strangely cathartic, and the #datavis seems to have been effective?
It was weird to rail against someone for an hour, but strangely cathartic, and the #datavis seems to have been effective?
Congrats to my student Leah Wood for successfully defending her Senior honors thesis "Spatiotemporal Modeling of Maternal Mortality in South Carolina 2018-2023"! Leah will pursue a Masters in Biostatistics next.
This was on par with an excellent Masters thesis, tbh. Great job!
This was on par with an excellent Masters thesis, tbh. Great job!
November 5, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Congrats to my student Leah Wood for successfully defending her Senior honors thesis "Spatiotemporal Modeling of Maternal Mortality in South Carolina 2018-2023"! Leah will pursue a Masters in Biostatistics next.
This was on par with an excellent Masters thesis, tbh. Great job!
This was on par with an excellent Masters thesis, tbh. Great job!
Having a great time visiting Columbia, SC and catching up with old friends and coworkers! I will always be grateful to @uofscstatistics.bsky.social for helping me to launch my career!
November 5, 2025 at 2:54 AM
Having a great time visiting Columbia, SC and catching up with old friends and coworkers! I will always be grateful to @uofscstatistics.bsky.social for helping me to launch my career!
nailed it!
Jonathan Bailey photographed by Jason Hetherington for People Magazine’s 2025 Sexiest Man Alive Issue
November 4, 2025 at 6:36 AM
nailed it!
One week till my trip to Columbia, SC to see my Honors student Leah defend her senior thesis! She did an excellent job on Bayesian spatiotemporal modeling of maternal mortality in South Carolina from 2018-2023. She coded up the model in Stan & R and produced some very nice maps!
October 29, 2025 at 12:40 AM
One week till my trip to Columbia, SC to see my Honors student Leah defend her senior thesis! She did an excellent job on Bayesian spatiotemporal modeling of maternal mortality in South Carolina from 2018-2023. She coded up the model in Stan & R and produced some very nice maps!
Excited to give a talk at the Maryland Statistical Symposium at the Brin Mathematics Research Center this December! Looking forward to connecting with many outstanding statistics researchers in the DMV area and the mid-Atlantic region.
October 21, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Excited to give a talk at the Maryland Statistical Symposium at the Brin Mathematics Research Center this December! Looking forward to connecting with many outstanding statistics researchers in the DMV area and the mid-Atlantic region.
My AISM paper "Bayesian group regularization in generalized linear models with a continuous spike-and-slab prior" is now online! I really appreciated the feedback from reviewers who wrote very thorough, high-quality reviews. A+ experience submitting here. tinyurl.com/yc6phfwv
Bayesian group regularization in generalized linear models with a continuous spike-and-slab prior - Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics
We study Bayesian group-regularized estimation in high-dimensional generalized linear models (GLMs) under a continuous spike-and-slab prior. Our framework covers both canonical and non-canonical link ...
tinyurl.com
October 18, 2025 at 10:13 PM
My AISM paper "Bayesian group regularization in generalized linear models with a continuous spike-and-slab prior" is now online! I really appreciated the feedback from reviewers who wrote very thorough, high-quality reviews. A+ experience submitting here. tinyurl.com/yc6phfwv
Today is my 40th birthday, and I had a very special treat for it -- getting to meet one of my idols, Dr. Jianqin Fan! Dr. Fan's papers on SCAD penalty and sure independence screening for high-dimensional data were among the first papers I read as a PhD student. So inspiring!
September 26, 2025 at 8:15 PM
Today is my 40th birthday, and I had a very special treat for it -- getting to meet one of my idols, Dr. Jianqin Fan! Dr. Fan's papers on SCAD penalty and sure independence screening for high-dimensional data were among the first papers I read as a PhD student. So inspiring!
Turning 40 in a week (!). Here are some old photos of me when I was 30-31 yrs old and much more fit/30 pounds lighter. Need to get back into shape, maybe join a local running group again!
September 19, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Turning 40 in a week (!). Here are some old photos of me when I was 30-31 yrs old and much more fit/30 pounds lighter. Need to get back into shape, maybe join a local running group again!
I'm pleased to share that my single-authored paper "Bayesian group regularization in generalized linear models with a continuous spike-and-slab prior" has been accepted for publication in Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics!
Link: raybai.net/wp-content/u...
Link: raybai.net/wp-content/u...
September 16, 2025 at 12:11 PM
I'm pleased to share that my single-authored paper "Bayesian group regularization in generalized linear models with a continuous spike-and-slab prior" has been accepted for publication in Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics!
Link: raybai.net/wp-content/u...
Link: raybai.net/wp-content/u...
Our paper, "Quantifying predictive uncertainty of aphasia severity in stroke patients with sparse heteroscedastic Bayesian high-dimensional regression," has been accepted for publication in Computational Statistics!
Read it here: raybai.net/wp-content/u...
Read it here: raybai.net/wp-content/u...
September 15, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Our paper, "Quantifying predictive uncertainty of aphasia severity in stroke patients with sparse heteroscedastic Bayesian high-dimensional regression," has been accepted for publication in Computational Statistics!
Read it here: raybai.net/wp-content/u...
Read it here: raybai.net/wp-content/u...
Going to be back at University of South Carolina November 4-5 for my Honors thesis student Leah's defense! Excited to see her exceptional work on Bayesian modeling of maternal mortality with suppressed data (a challenging project that she tackled very well). Hope to catch up with folks!
September 9, 2025 at 9:26 PM
Going to be back at University of South Carolina November 4-5 for my Honors thesis student Leah's defense! Excited to see her exceptional work on Bayesian modeling of maternal mortality with suppressed data (a challenging project that she tackled very well). Hope to catch up with folks!
University of Florida crew now at George Mason University Statistics Dept!
Ray Bai (PhD student at UF from 2014-2018), Brenda Betancourt (Assistant Professor at UF from 2018-2022), and Abolfazl Safikhani (Assistant Professor at UF from 2019-2022). Small world!
Ray Bai (PhD student at UF from 2014-2018), Brenda Betancourt (Assistant Professor at UF from 2018-2022), and Abolfazl Safikhani (Assistant Professor at UF from 2019-2022). Small world!
September 5, 2025 at 5:24 PM
University of Florida crew now at George Mason University Statistics Dept!
Ray Bai (PhD student at UF from 2014-2018), Brenda Betancourt (Assistant Professor at UF from 2018-2022), and Abolfazl Safikhani (Assistant Professor at UF from 2019-2022). Small world!
Ray Bai (PhD student at UF from 2014-2018), Brenda Betancourt (Assistant Professor at UF from 2018-2022), and Abolfazl Safikhani (Assistant Professor at UF from 2019-2022). Small world!
It's official now. My new faculty page at @georgemasonu.bsky.social is now up: statistics.gmu.edu/profiles/rbai2
Ray Bai
Research Interests: Bayesian inference, deep learning, deep generative models, high-dimensional statistics, scalable algorithms, causal inference, survival analysis
statistics.gmu.edu
August 28, 2025 at 5:10 PM
It's official now. My new faculty page at @georgemasonu.bsky.social is now up: statistics.gmu.edu/profiles/rbai2
@uofscstatistics.bsky.social has a *second* TT Assistant Professor position for Fall 2026 available. Applicants with research experience in causal inference, reinforcement learning, probabilistic graphical models, or sequential & adaptive decision-making are especially encouraged to apply.
We have ONE more tenure track position for Fall 2026! Welcome to apply!
uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/193...
uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/193...
Assistant Professor of Statistics
uscjobs.sc.edu
August 27, 2025 at 10:28 PM
@uofscstatistics.bsky.social has a *second* TT Assistant Professor position for Fall 2026 available. Applicants with research experience in causal inference, reinforcement learning, probabilistic graphical models, or sequential & adaptive decision-making are especially encouraged to apply.
My previous employer, the University of South Carolina Department of Statistics, has a new opening for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor position with a start date of August 16, 2026. This is a great place to work! Apply by November 17, 2025 for full consideration.
We are hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor for Fall 2026! The position is part of our University President’s AI Initiative!
uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/193...
uscjobs.sc.edu/postings/193...
Assistant Professor of Statistics
uscjobs.sc.edu
August 25, 2025 at 2:25 AM
My previous employer, the University of South Carolina Department of Statistics, has a new opening for a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor position with a start date of August 16, 2026. This is a great place to work! Apply by November 17, 2025 for full consideration.
Had such a great time at our going away get-together tonight! We are so grateful for the friends we made in Columbia, SC. We will be back to visit again. Come visit us in DC! ❤️
August 17, 2025 at 1:47 AM
Had such a great time at our going away get-together tonight! We are so grateful for the friends we made in Columbia, SC. We will be back to visit again. Come visit us in DC! ❤️
Last day in the office at USC, and my advisees came to meet with me one last time! My Senior Honors thesis student Leah, my Summer REU student Evan, & my PhD students Fanghua and Sijian. So fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with outstanding students at USC. #professor #proudadvisor
August 15, 2025 at 8:44 PM
Last day in the office at USC, and my advisees came to meet with me one last time! My Senior Honors thesis student Leah, my Summer REU student Evan, & my PhD students Fanghua and Sijian. So fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with outstanding students at USC. #professor #proudadvisor
Last week on University of South Carolina's campus. I will be in the office on Friday for some final in-person meetings and for some final orders of business.
If you're at USC on Fri., please come say goodbye!
If you're at USC on Fri., please come say goodbye!
August 13, 2025 at 6:06 PM
Last week on University of South Carolina's campus. I will be in the office on Friday for some final in-person meetings and for some final orders of business.
If you're at USC on Fri., please come say goodbye!
If you're at USC on Fri., please come say goodbye!
Reposted by Ray Bai
#IPAM (the institute for pure and applied mathematics) is facing a critical shortfall for operating expenses due to an unexpected suspension of NSF funding www.ipam.ucla.edu/news/nsf-fun... . Donations for emergency continuity of operations funding can be made at
giving.ucla.edu/Campaign/Donat
giving.ucla.edu/Campaign/Donat
www.ipam.ucla.edu
August 8, 2025 at 12:48 AM
#IPAM (the institute for pure and applied mathematics) is facing a critical shortfall for operating expenses due to an unexpected suspension of NSF funding www.ipam.ucla.edu/news/nsf-fun... . Donations for emergency continuity of operations funding can be made at
giving.ucla.edu/Campaign/Donat
giving.ucla.edu/Campaign/Donat
Reposted by Ray Bai
I have some related posts on this at mathstodon.xyz/@tao/1149568... and mathstodon.xyz/deck/@tao/11...
Terence Tao (@tao@mathstodon.xyz)
The current administration in the US has, through various funding agencies such as the NSF and NIH, has recently suspended virtually all federal grants to my home university, UCLA (including my own p...
mathstodon.xyz
August 8, 2025 at 12:49 AM
I have some related posts on this at mathstodon.xyz/@tao/1149568... and mathstodon.xyz/deck/@tao/11...
New preprint "Parameter expanded variational Bayes for well-calibrated high-dimensional linear regression with spike-and-slab priors"!
Read the full paper here: www.researchgate.net/publication/...
Read the full paper here: www.researchgate.net/publication/...
August 1, 2025 at 8:53 PM
New preprint "Parameter expanded variational Bayes for well-calibrated high-dimensional linear regression with spike-and-slab priors"!
Read the full paper here: www.researchgate.net/publication/...
Read the full paper here: www.researchgate.net/publication/...
Today is my last "official" day at University of South Carolina. Next month, I will be moving to the D.C. area and continuing my academic career at George Mason University. However, I really cherish my time as a faculty member at USC. #ForeverToThee
Read my full post here: tinyurl.com/4fpzjeru
Read my full post here: tinyurl.com/4fpzjeru
July 31, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Today is my last "official" day at University of South Carolina. Next month, I will be moving to the D.C. area and continuing my academic career at George Mason University. However, I really cherish my time as a faculty member at USC. #ForeverToThee
Read my full post here: tinyurl.com/4fpzjeru
Read my full post here: tinyurl.com/4fpzjeru
Thank you for all of the support the last few years, @uofscstatistics.bsky.social. I will greatly cherish my time as a faculty member at USC where I got to collaborate with great colleagues, teach and mentor excellent students, and grow as a researcher and educator!
We had a farewell lunch with Dr. Ray Bai @raybai07.bsky.social. Wishing him all the best in his position at George Mason University! We are happy to have such a great researcher and teacher in our Department. 👋🏼👋🏼
July 30, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Thank you for all of the support the last few years, @uofscstatistics.bsky.social. I will greatly cherish my time as a faculty member at USC where I got to collaborate with great colleagues, teach and mentor excellent students, and grow as a researcher and educator!
"A Unified Three-State Model Framework for Analysis of Treatment Crossover in Survival Trials" (with my former PhD student Zile Zhao and our co-authors) was published in the most recent issue of Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research! Check it out here: doi.org/10.1080/1946...
A Unified Three-State Model Framework for Analysis of Treatment Crossover in Survival Trials
We present a unified three-state model (TSM) framework for evaluating treatment effects in clinical trials in the presence of treatment crossover. Researchers have proposed diverse methodologies to...
doi.org
July 29, 2025 at 9:48 PM
"A Unified Three-State Model Framework for Analysis of Treatment Crossover in Survival Trials" (with my former PhD student Zile Zhao and our co-authors) was published in the most recent issue of Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research! Check it out here: doi.org/10.1080/1946...