Simon Mak

About me

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistical Science at Duke University. 

My research involves integrating domain knowledge (e.g., scientific theories, mechanistic models, guiding principles) as prior information for cost-efficient statistical inference, prediction and decision-making. This gives a holistic framework for interpretable statistical learning, providing a principled way for scientists to validate theories from data, and for statisticians to integrate scientific knowledge. My ongoing research is motivated from interdisciplinary collaborations in high-energy and nuclear physics, aerospace engineering and public policy. I am currently the Program Chair-Elect of the ASA Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences, the Deputy Spokesperson of JETSCAPE (a multi-institutional collaboration on high-energy physics), and an Associate Editor for Technometrics and Data Science in Science. I have been honored to receive the Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award, the ASA SPES Award, the ASA Editor's Choice Collection Award, and best paper awards from the ASA, INFORMS and IISE.