Ben Seiyon Lee

Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics

George Mason University

About Me

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at George Mason University. I received my Ph.D. in Statistics from the Pennsylvania State University where I was advised by Dr. Murali Haran (Statistics) and co-advised by Dr. Klaus Keller (Geosciences). During my graduate studies, I was a part of the research network for Sustainable Climate Risk Management (SCRiM) and the Program on Coupled Human and Earth Systems (PCHES).

My research interests include:

computational methods for high-dimensional hierarchical spatial / spatio-temporal models
statistical methods and parallelized algorithms for computer model calibration
uncertainty quantification
Bayesian hierarchical modeling
interdisciplinary research in the environmental sciences
bioengineering applications
biostatistics and translational research in collaboration with INOVA Health System

News and Updates (since February 2024)

07/24: Congratulations to Dr. Remy MacDonald for a successful thesis defense on July 25th! Next stop, the FDA as a mathematical statistician.
07/24: Our book chapter Latent Gaussian Models and Computation for Large Spatial Data will appear in the Handbook of MCMC.
06/24: I gave a talk at the SRCOS Annual Summer Research Conference on "A Class of Models for Large Zero-inflated Spatial Data".
05/24: Our manuscript "Flexible Basis Representations for Modeling Large Non-Gaussian Spatial Data" has been accepted at Spatial Statistics.
05/24: Our manuscript "Guideline-Directed Medical Therapy Implementation During Hospitalization for Cardiogenic Shock" has been accepted at ESC: Heart Failure.
05/24: Excited to start our collaboration with Lawrence Livermore National Labs through the Academic Collaboration Team (ACT) Program with Dr. Jason Bernstein and Dr. Philip Myint. The collaboration supports Ph.D student Jolypich Pek .
04/24: I received a Faculty Excellence Award from the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC) - 2024 Outstanding Tenure-Track Faculty.
04/24: Our manuscript "A Class of Models for Large Zero-inflated Spatial Data" has been published at the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics.
03/24: Looking forward to working with Drs. Samuel Acuna (BENG), Kevin Lybarger (IST), and Siddhartha Sikdar (BENG) on our recently awarded Summer Team Impact Project Grant, "Recording the lived experiences of patients with chronic pain from minoritized and underserved communities." The grant will support multidisciplinary summer projects of undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members for Summer 2024, and we will welcome six undergraduate researchers to our group, including Statistics accelerated bachelors-to-masters student Isaac Paki Amouzou.
02/24: Congratulations to Ph.D student Jin Hyung Lee for successfully defending his thesis proposal.
02/24: We successfully completed Phase I of a NOAA-Small Business Innovation Research Program grant titled "EXCLAIM: A Decision Support Toolkit to Mitigate Impacts of Cascading Climate Hazards)" with Dr. John Foley from Metron, Inc.

Education

The Pennsylvania State University, Ph.D. Statistics, 2020

Columbia University, M.A., Applied Statistics (, 2015

Johns Hopkins University, B.A., International Studies, 2008

Contact

Email: slee287 [at] gmu [period] edu

Phone: (703) 993-9113

Office: Nguyen Engineering Building Room 1709

Mailing Address:
4400 University Drive, MS 4A7
Fairfax, VA 22030, USA.
College of Engineering and Computing
George Mason University

Looking to Collaborate?

Collaborators (and Coffee!): If you are interested in collaborating or just want to chat about research, feel free to reach out! We can set up a meeting to discuss in-person or via Zoom. If you want to grab coffee on campus, we could drop by the Starbucks at the Johnson Center or Northern Neck.

INOVA-GMU Collaborative Core: If you are an INOVA health care professional interested in collaborating with me through the GMU-INOVA Collaborative Core, please visit the collaboration homepage.

Students: I am also looking for motivated graduate students to join my research lab. If you have a background in statistical computing and/or are interested in applications in the environmental sciences, please send me an email. Our group will work on a variety of projects related to spatial and spatio-temporal statistics, uncertainty quantification and computer model calibration, Bayesian methodology development, and extreme value analysis in the climate sciences.

Curriculum Vitae

My CV can be found here . (updated 03/2025)

Publications

[23] Haran, M., Hughes, J.P., and Lee, B.S. (2023) Latent Gaussian Models and Computation for Large Spatial Data To appear in the Handbook of MCMC

[22] Matthew G. Dimond, Carolyn M. Rosner, Seiyon Ben Lee, Unique Shakoor, Taraneh Samadani, Wayne B. Batchelor, Abdulla A. Damluji, Shashank S. Desai, MD, Kelly C. Epps, M. Casey Flanagan, Hala Moukhachen, Anika Raja, Matthew W. Sherwood, Ramesh Singh, Palak Shah, Daniel Tang, Behnam N. Tehrani, Alexander G. Truesdell, Karl D. Young, Mona Fiuzat, Christopher M. O’Connor, Shashank S. Sinha, and Mitchell A. Psotka. Guideline-Directed Medical Therapy Implementation During Hospitalization for Cardiogenic Shock. To appear in ESC: Heart Failure.

[21] MacDonald, R., and B. S. Lee. Flexible Basis Representations for Modeling High-Dimensional Hierarchical Spatial Data. To appear in Spatial Statistics. https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.06808

[20] B. S. Lee and M. Haran. A Class of Models for Large Zero-inflated Spatial Data. Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics. 1-23.

[19] I. Hosseini-Shakib, A. Alipour, B.S. Lee, V. Srikrishnan, R. Nicholas, K. Keller, and S. Sharma. Hazards are the key drivers of uncertainties surrounding riverine flood risks. To appear in the Journal of Hydrology.

[18] Lawrence, J.R., Lee, B. S., Fadahunsi, A.I, and Mowery, B.D. (2024+) Evaluating Sepsis Bundle (SEP-1) Compliance as a Predictor for Patient Outcomes at a Community Hospital: A Retrospective Study. To Appear in the Journal of Nursing Care Quality.

[17] Roth, S., Lee, B. S., Nicholas, R. E., Keller, K., & Haran, M. (2024). Bayesian Spatial Models for Projecting Corn Yields. Remote Sensing, 16(1), 69.

[16] P. Shah, S. Agbor-Enoh, B.S Lee, T. Andargie, S. Sinha, H. Kong, L. Henry, W. Park, E. McNair, I. Tchoukina, K. Shah, S. Najjar, S. Hsu, M. Rodrigo, M.K. Jang, C. Marboe, G. Berry, and H. Valantine. Racial Differences in Donor-derived Cell-free DNA and Mitochondrial DNA are Associated with Inferior Outcomes in Black Heart Transplant Patients, on behalf of the GRAfT Investigators. To Appear in Circulation: Heart Failure.

[15] Patwardhan, S., Gladhill, K.A., Joiner, W.M., Schofield, J.S., Lee, B.S. and Sikdar, S., 2023. Using principles of motor control to analyze the performance of human machine interfaces. Scientific Reports, 13(1), p.13273.

[14] Sharma, S., Lee, B. S., Hosseini-Shakib, I., Haran, M., & Keller, K. (2023). Neglecting model parametric uncertainty can drastically underestimate flood risks. Earth's Future, 11, e2022EF003050. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EF003050

[13] Rosner, C.M., Lee, B.S., Badrish, N., Maini, A.S., Young, K.D., Vorgang, C.M., Bagnola, A., Desai, S.S., Hahndorf, C., Looby, M. and Psotka, M.A., 2023. Advanced Practice Provider Urgent Outpatient Clinic for Patients With Decompensated Heart Failure. Journal of Cardiac Failure, 29(4), pp.536-539.

[12] Roth, S., B. S. Lee, Sharma, S., Hosseini-Shakib, I., Keller, K., and M. Haran. (2023) Flood hazard model calibration using multiresolution model output. Environmetrics 34, no. 2: e2769

[11] Srikrishnan, V., D. Lafferty, T. Wong, T, J. Lamontagne, J. Quinn, S. Sharma, N. J. Molla, J. Herman, R. Sriver, J. Morris, and B. S. Lee. (2022) Uncertainty challenges in multi-sector systems: Open challenges to risk analysis, prediction, and planning for critical infrastructure. Earth's Future, 10(8), e2021EF002644. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002644

[10] Lee, B. S., & Park, J. (2023). A scalable partitioned approach to model massive nonstationary non-Gaussian spatial datasets. Technometrics, 65(1), 105-116.

[9] Tehrani, B.N., Sherwood, M.W., Rosner, C., Truesdell, A.G., Lee, B.S., Damluji, A.A., Desai, M., Desai, S., Epps, K.C., Flanagan, M.C. and Howard, E., (2022). A Standardized and Regionalized Network of Care for Cardiogenic Shock. JACC: Heart Failure.

[8] Sinha, S. S., Rosner, C. M., Tehrani, B. N., Maini, A., Truesdell, A. G., Lee, S. B., Bagchi, P., Cameron, J., Damluji, A. A., Desai, M., Desai, S. S., Epps, K. C., deFilippi, C., Flanagan, M. C., Genovese, L., Moukhachen, H., Park, J. J., Psotka, M. A., Raja, A., Shah, P., … Batchelor, W. B. (2022). Cardiogenic Shock From Heart Failure Versus Acute Myocardial Infarction: Clinical Characteristics, Hospital Course, and 1-Year Outcomes. Circulation. Heart failure, 15(6), e009279. https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCHEARTFAILURE.121.009279

[7] Doshi, A., Shah, K., Agbor-Enoh, S., Tushak, Z., Garcia, V., Kong, H., Jang, M., Hsu, S., Feller, E., Rodrigo, S., Tunc, I., Yang, Y., Lee, B.S., Solomon, M., Berry, G., Marboe, P., & Valantine, H. (2022). Higher Levels of Allograft Injury in Black Patients Early after Heart Transplantation. The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.

[6] Lee, B. S., Haran, M. (2022). PICAR: An Efficient Extendable Approach for Fitting Hierarchical Spatial Models. Technometrics, 64(2), 187-198, https://doi.org/10.1080/00401706.2021.1933596

[5] Sharma, S., Lee, B.S. , Nicholas, R., and Keller, K., (2021). A safety factor approach to designing urban infrastructure for dynamic conditions. Earth’s Future, 9, e2021EF002118. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002118.

[4] Sharma, S., Ghimire, G.R., Talchabhadel, R., Panthi, J., Parajuli, B., Dahal, P., Lee, B.S., Sun, F., Baniya, R., Adhikari, T.R. and Poudyal, K., (2021). Bayesian characterization of uncertainties surrounding fluvial flood hazard estimates. Taylor & Francis & IAHS, Hydrological Sciences Journal, 10.1080/02626667.2021.1999959.

[3] Lee, B.S., Haran, M., Fuller, R.W., Pollard, D., and Keller, K. (2020) A Fast Particle-Based Approach for Calibrating a 3-D Model of the Antarctic Ice Sheet. The Annals of Applied Statistics 14(2), 605-634. https://doi.org/10.1214/19-AOAS1305

[2] Lee, B. S., Haran, M., and Keller, K. (2017). Multidecadal Scale Detection Time for Potentially Increasing Atlantic Storm Surges in a Warming Climate. Geophysical Research Letters, 44, 10,617– 10,623. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074606

[1] Oddo, P. C., Lee, B. S., Garner, G. G., Srikrishnan, V. , Reed, P. M., Forest, C. E. and Keller, K. (2017), Deep Uncertainties in Sea‐Level Rise and Storm Surge Projections: Implications for Coastal Flood Risk Management. Risk Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12888

Manuscripts Under Review

[3] Li Y., Tong D., Jeon, Y., Lee, B.S., Park, J., Kondragunta, S., and Zhang S. Using AOD and UVAI to Reduce the Uncertainties in Wildfire Emission and Air Quality Forecast. Under Review.

[2] Lee, J.H., and Lee, B.S. A Distributed Variational Approach for Modeling High-dimensional Spatial Generalized Linear Mixed Models. Under Review. https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.15705

[1] K. J. Roop-Eckart, S. Sharma, M. Zarekarizi, B. Lee, C. Spence, T. Russo, and K. Keller. Effects of Mixed Distribution Statistical Flood Frequency Models on Dam Safety Assessments: A Case Study of the Pueblo Dam, USA. Submitted.

Funding

INOVA Health U19-11-3826 (Co-PI) Biostatistician Resource and Research for Researchers on iTHRIVE: Using Data to Improve Health (Parent award NIH 1UL1TR003015-1). PI: Dr. Jiayang Sun. 2021/02/01 – 2025/01/31.
NIH R61AT012286-01 (Co-I) Multimodal Imaging Biomarkers for Investigating Fascia, Muscle, and Vasculature in Myofascial Pain. PI: Dr. Siddhartha Sikdar. 2022/09/21 - 2027/8/31
NOAA NA23OAR0210558 (Mason PI) EXCLAIM: A Decision Support Toolkit to Mitigate Impacts of Cascading Climate Hazards. PI: Drs. John Foley (Metron, Inc) and Seiyon Lee (GMU). 2023/09/01 - 2024/02/28
LLNL (Mason PI) StatsEOS: Bayesian Calibration and Uncertainty quantification of Mixture Equations-of-State. PI: Drs. Jason Bernstein (LLNL), Seiyon Lee (GMU), and Philip Myint (LLNL). 2024/05/01 - 2027/04/30