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2026 Frontiers in Learning Under Data Heterogeneity

January 16-17, 2026

The University of Florida Department of Statistics’ Annual Winter Workshop will take place on January 16-17, 2026 (Friday-Saturday).

The workshop will be in-person in the Reitz Union Chamber.

A fundamental challenge in modern data science involves developing rigorous methods for statistical inference and machine learning when working with heterogeneous data. Real-world datasets frequently originate from diverse sources spanning multiple domains, institutions, and subpopulations, creating complex distributional shifts that violate traditional modeling assumptions. This workshop will unite researchers bridging theory and application to explore recent advances addressing such variability through principled approaches. Key topics encompass generalization under distribution shift, adaptation strategies for covariate and label shift, invariant representation learning, and robust aggregation frameworks in decentralized environments. The event will connect statisticians, machine learning researchers, AI scientists to identify emerging challenges and chart future research questions. All sessions will be conducted as plenary presentations.

To register, go to: Statistics Winter Workshop: 2026

Speakers

Yuekai Sun–University of Michigan

Sivaraman Balakrishnan–Carnegie Mellon University

Rui Duan–Harvard University

Hamsa Bastani–University of Pennsylvania

Yang Feng–New York University

Zijian Guo–Rutgers University

Annie Qu–University of California, Irvine

Arya Mazumdar—University of California, San Diego

Lingzhou Xue–Pennsylvania State University

Xinwei Shen–University of Washington, Seattle

Program

Agenda

Friday, January 16, 2026

Day One Video

  • 8:30 AM Breakfast
  • 9:00 AM Welcome
  • 9:10 AM
  • 9:55 AM
  • 10:40 AM Break (15 mins)
  • 10:55 AM
  • 11:40 AM
  • 12:25 PM Lunch
  • 1:55 PM
  • 2:40 PM
  • 3:25 PM
  • 3:40 PM
  • 4:25 PM Poster Session
  • 5:25 PM Day 1 Ends

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Day Two Video

  • 8:30 AM Breakfast
  • 9:00 AM
  • 9:45 AM
  • 10:30 AM Break (15 mins)
  • 10:45 AM
  • 11:30 AM
  • 12:15 PM Break
  • 12:30 PM
  • 1:15 PM Conference Ends

Poster Presentations

The workshop will also include a poster session. Funding is expected to support a limited number of young researchers to attend the workshop and present their work at the poster session.

The organizing committee is soliciting applications from senior
graduate students (4th year or higher) and researchers who received
their Ph.D. in or after 2020.

Applications should include a curriculum vitae, a one-page abstract, and the names of two references, including a major professor who is supervising (or has supervised) the applicant’s research.

Applications should be emailed by November 12, 2025.  Women and under-represented groups are encouraged to apply.  Funding applications and workshop registration link are found on the Workshop web page.  Emails should be sent to winterworkshop@stat.ufl.edu

Organizers/Scientific Committee

Sohom Bhattacharya and Satarupa Bhattacharjee

Sponsors

 

 

 

UF Department of Statistics

UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

UF Office of Research