Join us for an in-person Distinguished Speaker event featuring Xiao-Li Meng, an internationally renowned statistician, data scientist, and former Dean of the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Widely recognized for his pioneering contributions to statistical science, data analysis, and interdisciplinary research, Meng has helped shape statistics and data science through groundbreaking scholarship, academic leadership, and innovative approaches to understanding uncertainty in an increasingly data-driven world.

Title: A Trinity Platform for Scholarly Publications: A Harvard Experiment

Designed as a Trinity platform and launched in 2019 with a commitment to diamond open access, Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR) unites the strengths of a premier research journal, a cutting-edge educational publication, and a popular magazine to provide a crossroads at which fundamental data science research and education intersect and interact directly with societally important applications. This eight-year experimentation offers initial evidence that such a model can be intellectually viable, societally impactful, and financially sustainable, because it better captures the intellectual, pedagogical, and economic values created by the three Cs that define scholarly publication. That is, statistically speaking, a scholarly publication is where the content is timely and of the highest quality, created by an ever-expanding community of the best minds — authors, reviewers, and editors — committed to a shared culture of rigorous pursuit and critical thinking. Extending beyond the page into podcasts, conferences, and online programs, it offers a versatile and agile model for scholarly publications in the age of AI, especially as our global society undergoes an “AGI realignment” (Meng, HDSR Spring Editorial, 2026): of the roles, functions, and interactions of Academia, Government, and Industry. With respect to the more commonly known AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), the talk ends with a provocation: the scholarly publishing community sits on a hidden treasure for building AGI. Deciding whether to offer this treasure likely takes more than scholarly debate, since its consequences could be lauded (e.g., supporting open access) or dreaded (e.g., given existing fears about AI).

Xiao-Li Meng is the Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Statistics at Harvard and Founding Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Data Science Review. He received his BS in mathematics from Fudan University in 1982 and his PhD in statistics from Harvard in 1990. After serving on the University of Chicago faculty (1991–2001), he returned to Harvard, where he chaired the Department of Statistics (2004–2012) and served as Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2012–2017). His research spans foundations of statistical inference—including interactions among Bayesian, fiducial, and frequentist perspectives; standard, imprecise, and quantum probability; data utility and privacy; and multi-source, multi-phase, and multi-resolution inference—statistical methodology and computation, including posterior predictive p-values, EM, MCMC, bridge and path sampling, and heavy-tail approximations; and applications across natural, social, and medical sciences and engineering, including complex modeling in astronomy and astrophysics, disparities in mental health services, and statistical information in genetic studies. In 2001, Meng received the COPSS President’s Award, recognizing the outstanding statistician under age 40, and in 2020 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Application for degree due to The Graduate School to receive a degree in Fall

Join us on October 28 for an in-person Distinguished Speaker event featuring Dennis Chookaszian, former Chairman and CEO of CNA Insurance Companies, CPA, and one of the nation's most experienced corporate directors. Throughout a career that has included leadership roles across industry, finance, and entrepreneurship, Chookaszian has helped shape organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to startups and nonprofit institutions.

3:30-4:30 — Lecture

4:30-5:30 — Light networking reception

Mr. Chookaszian was with CNA Insurance for twenty-six years, serving as chairman and CEO for seven years, then chairman of the executive committee for three years. Before that, he was President for two years and Chief Financial Officer for fifteen years. After CNA, he was chairman and CEO of mPower Inc., an internet financial advisory service. Prior to CNA, he was a management consultant with Deloitte for eight years.

Mr. Chookaszian was chairman of Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council (FASAC), which provides guidance to the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) on accounting matters, from 2007 to 2012. He has served as a director on the boards of thirteen publicly traded corporations, eighty private corporations, and eleven nonprofit organizations. He is currently a director of two public companies, twenty private corporations, and six nonprofit organizations. He has also served as an arbitrator in thirteen cases and an expert witness in twenty-four cases.

He teaches courses in Corporate Governance and Artificial Intelligence. He has also taught courses in International Corporate Governance at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in China and at Jiao Tong Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance in China. He previously taught Corporate Governance at IIPM in India.

Mr. Chookaszian has a BS degree in chemical engineering from Northwestern University, an MBA from the University of Chicago, and an MS degree in economics from the London School of Economics. He is a CPA, a Chartered Global Management Accountant, a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter, an NACD Certified Director, and a Certified Management Consultant. In 2010, Mr. Chookaszian received the Outstanding Director Award from the Financial Times Outstanding Directors Exchange.

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Join us for an in-person Distinguished Speaker event featuring Guillaume Fontaine, Director of the McGill RISE³ Implementation Science Lab and Assistant Professor at McGill University. An internationally recognized leader in implementation science, Fontaine's research advances the use of evidence-based frameworks and methodologies to improve healthcare outcomes, with a particular focus on integrating artificial intelligence into implementation research and practice.

Title: The Implementation Problem in AI: Perspectives from Implementation Science

Abstract: AI systems can perform well in testing and still deliver limited benefits in practice. Their impact depends on whether people adopt them, how they fit into everyday work, and whether their use produces lasting benefits across populations.

This talk examines how AI and implementation science can inform each other. Implementation science studies how evidence and innovations are adopted, integrated into routine practice, and sustained. It offers methods to identify barriers to AI use, test strategies to address those barriers, and assess outcomes beyond technical performance. AI also raises questions for the field. As AI systems are updated and used in different settings, what should remain consistent in our approach to implementation, what needs to be adapted, and how can effective use be sustained?

In the other direction, AI is being explored as a tool to support implementation research. Applications include reviewing evidence, identifying barriers to change, developing implementation strategies, and supporting evaluation. I will discuss how to assess the reliability of these contributions, whose knowledge and perspectives they reflect, and where local knowledge and human judgment remain essential.

I will argue that realizing AI’s promise requires asking what works, for whom, under what conditions, and how to achieve lasting, equitable benefits at scale.

Dr. Guillaume Fontaine (PhD, MSc, RN) is the Director of the McGill RISE³ Implementation Science Lab and an Assistant Professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. He is a Principal Investigator in the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology at the Lady Davis Institute, and holds visiting appointments in the Viral Hepatitis Clinical Research Program at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, and the Centre for Implementation Research, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. He co-leads the Implementation Science Research Pillar for the Canadian Network on Hepatitis C, co-leads the Methods Think Tank for the Pan-Canadian HIV/AIDS Clinical Trials Research Network, serves on the Steering Committee of Knowledge Translation Canada, and co-chairs the Global Network on Implementation and Data Sciences. His research program focuses on applying and advancing implementation science frameworks and methodologies to improve healthcare outcomes, , with particular emphasis on the integration of AI into implementation research and practice.

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Regular registration for Winter quarter begins

Dissertation, PhD Final Exam, and change of grade forms due to TGS for Fall PhD candidates

Thanksgiving Vacation begins at 6:00 PM (No classes, University offices closed)

Fall Classes Resume

Fall classes end

Fall Exams begin