On January 6, 2018, the first Academic Forum for PhD students in Statistics from Shanghai universities was grandly held at the School of Statistics and Management of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. This forum was jointly initiated and organized by Fudan University, East China Normal University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai Normal University, and other universities. It was hosted by the School of Statistics and Management of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, aiming to provide a good academic exchange platform for young statisticians in Shanghai. Nearly 80 experts, scholars, and doctoral students from the statistics disciplines of multiple universities in Shanghai participated in this forum. The opening ceremony was presided over by You Jinhong, the associate dean of the School of Statistics and Management at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.
Professor Xu Longbing, the Executive Vice Dean of the Graduate School of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, first delivered a welcome speech. Professor Xu warmly welcomed the experts and scholars from various universities and expressed appreciation for the achievements made by our school's statistics discipline in recent years. He highlighted several important measures and quality monitoring methods that our school has implemented to improve the quality of PhD student training, including rewarding PhD students for high-quality research achievements, funding students to attend high-level academic conferences, selecting "Academic Stars," and funding PhD students for joint training abroad, continuously advancing the management process of PhD student training. Additionally, the Graduate School has also significantly increased information disclosure efforts and is fully committed to providing students with better service.
Subsequently, Professor Zhang Xinsheng from Fudan University and Professor Wu Xianyi from East China Normal University delivered speeches. The two professors fully affirmed the practical significance of holding this doctoral student academic forum, which provides a high-quality platform for academic exchanges among young talents in the field of statistics at Shanghai universities. This marks a great start for the statistics disciplines at various universities in Shanghai. They hope that such platforms can continue to be held, forming a brand and showcasing unique features, thereby demonstrating the admirable demeanor of statistical students in Shanghai.
At the end of the opening ceremony, Professor Zhou Yong, Dean of the School of Statistics and Management at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, delivered a concluding speech. Dean Zhou believes that this is the best era for the development of the discipline of statistics, and contemporary students of statistics are fortunate. Statistics has a wide application in interdisciplinary fields such as humanities and social sciences, as well as natural sciences, making it an important discipline with great development potential. Platforms for communication like the PhD academic forum deepen academic exchanges between institutions, allowing students of statistics to fully showcase their academic achievements and enhance their comprehensive skills such as expression and communication. He expressed special thanks for the strong support from sister institutions, stating, "In the context of building a first-class discipline in statistics at our university, the School of Statistics at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics needs to strengthen deep exchanges with sister institutions to jointly promote the cultivation of talents in the field of statistics."
After the opening ceremony, the forum officially began. This forum adopted a format of student presentations, expert reviews, and student discussions, setting up two parallel sessions. Twenty PhD students from different universities presented academic reports on cutting-edge theories in the field of statistics, covering topics such as longitudinal data analysis methods, panel data clustering based on quantile regression, quantile regression, financial statistics, and risk management. More than a dozen renowned domestic statistics professors and experts conducted live reviews and engaged in in-depth exchanges with the PhD students, providing guidance and answering questions, creating a lively atmosphere for academic discussion on-site.
The first Shanghai University Statistics PhD Student Academic Forum provides a sufficient platform for the collision and integration of various academic viewpoints and thoughts from different academic backgrounds, effectively broadening the academic ideas and research fields of PhD students in statistics and inspiring the passion for theoretical innovation. Under the goal of constructing "first-class disciplines," the School of Statistics and Management at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics will actively utilize its advantages in location, resources, and more, to build an exchange platform within the field, promote the development of statistics and related disciplines, and continuously enhance the influence of our university's statistics discipline.
