Rate My Professor Xinlei Wang

Xinlei (Sherry) Wang is the Jenkins-Garrett Professor of Statistics and Data Science in the Department of Mathematics and Co-Director for Research in the Division of Data Science at The University of Texas at Arlington. She joined UTA in January 2023 as director of the College of Science’s Center for Data Science Research and Education, launching the M.S. in Applied Statistics and Data Science in Fall 2023. In January 2024, she was appointed to her current co-directorship role, supporting data science instructional and research programs including bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Previously, at Southern Methodist University from 2003 to 2023, she progressed from Assistant Professor of Statistical Science to Full Professor (2015), Gerald J. Ford Senior Research Fellow (2020), and recipient of the Dean’s Research Council Award (2022).

Wang holds a B.S. in Automatic Control from the University of Science and Technology of China (1997), an M.A. in Statistics from the University of Pittsburgh (1998), and a Ph.D. in Decision Science and Statistics from The University of Texas at Austin (2002). Her research interests encompass statistical omics for high-dimensional biological data analysis in genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics; Bayesian deep learning for robust neural networks with uncertainty quantification; explainable artificial intelligence; and integrative meta-analytical methods in biomedical studies. Funded by NSF, NIH, and CPRIT, her scholarship includes over 90 refereed publications and 75 conference presentations, alongside directing 19 Ph.D. dissertations. She was elected a 2024 Fellow of the American Statistical Association for contributions to statistical and computational methods for complex data, mentoring excellence, and data science leadership. An ASA member since 1999, she served as vice president (2009–10) and president (2010–11) of the North Texas Chapter.