Hongxia Yang

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Dr. Hongxia Yang is working as the Senior Staff Data Scientist and Director in ... mining and their applications to prob
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Hongxia Yang Associate Editor, Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry and China’s Encyclopedia in Computer Science. Dr. Hongxia Yang is working as the Senior Staff Data Scientist and Director in Data Technology and Product Division, Alibaba Group. Her interests span the areas of Bayesian statistics, time series analysis, spatial-temporal modeling, survival analysis, machine learning, data mining and their applications to problems in business analytics and big data. Current on-going projects in her team include huge dynamic multi-level heterogeneous graphical model for user profiling system, large-scale knowledge graph and its efficient inference for data enabling platform and general ensemble prediction framework for various revenue and sales forecasting, among several others. How or why did you choose statistics as a career path/area of study? Math was my favorite subject in high school. After that, I spent the first two years as a math major in the university. Though I realized that theories are beautiful and neat, I couldn’t see their direct impact in practice. At the same time, statistical modeling, which can reveal the true underlying values of the data, caught my eye. I got a graduate school offer from Duke University to further my PhD study in Bayesian statistics, which is also my favorite direction in the statistical modeling. I have always felt excited and lucky about my choice. What inspires you about statistics and data science? Data in industry is huge and complicated. I love the fact that statistical modeling is powerful in revealing its real underlying connections and values, and informing us of decisions for the future. What challenges do women face in statistics and data science professions/academia? Besides the biggest challenges from pregnancy, childbirth and raising young kids, which often happen at the early career stages, I do not think there are any other specific challenges to female statisticians and data scientists. What is the ratio of female to male in your workplace/faculty? In the United States, the male-to-female ratio of data scientists is 3 to 1. At Alibaba, the ratio is 1.65 to 1. What does a typical day in your job involve? My team often has several projects going on simultaneously and my typical day is usually a mix of high level modeling, system design & computer programming, meeting and interacting with my team members, preparing talks and presentations to my peers and high level management, email, doing collaborative research both internally and externally. What would you say to girls in school/college who may be considering statistics or data science as a study option/career choice? Just do it! I strongly encourage them to work in related areas, which are not only full of adventures and exciting new things, but also popular and well paid in many different fields.

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Do you think the perception of statistics or data science as a male-dominated career can be changed, and if so, how? Yes, certainly. I have been inspired to join influential and inspiring women in statistics and data science to encourage other women that we can indeed close the gap. A path has already been laid out for us that identifies the challenges and opportunities to draw more women into data science, and STEM as a whole.