To view or sign up for this year’s slate of CISER workshops or to receive workshop materials and Zoom information, please visit the following link.
Upcoming Events
March 3, 2026
CISER Tea – Research Collaboration Mixer
3:00-5:00pm on the WSU-Pullman Campus in Neill Hall 101W (near the elevator)
Sign up at the link!
CISER Tea will be a chance for you to meet the CISER team and network with other researchers who may be interested in collaborations in research. This is a great opportunity to meet with folks (statisticians and non-statisticians), discuss your research, or to simply introduce yourself to other researchers in the WSU sphere. Tea and treats will be served for those in attendance.
Past Events
January 29, 2026
Introduction and Application of R Statistical Software
3:10-5:00pm – SPARK 323 on the WSU – Pullman campus and via Zoom
Instructors:
PhD Students in Statistics @ Washington State University
The workshop introduces participants to R and RStudio for practical data manipulation and introductory statistical analysis. Attendees will learn the core fundamentals of R, including using it as a calculator, working with different data types, and creating and indexing vectors and lists. The session will then cover exploratory summaries and visualizations. Participants will develop a complete workflow for working with data frames, which includes subsetting, conditional indexing, modifying variables, and saving/importing datasets in CSV and Excel formats. Building on these skills, the workshop offers a hands-on introduction to essential statistical tools, such as simple linear regression with diagnostic checks (normality, homoscedasticity, autocorrelation, and multicollinearity), as well as one-sample and two-sample t-tests, and one-way ANOVA with assumption checks and post-hoc comparisons. By the end of the workshop, attendees will be able to load, clean, explore, visualize, and analyze data in R using both base R and tidyverse workflows.
November 6 & 13, 2025
Bayesian Data Analysis Series
3:10-5:00pm – Spark 212 and via Zoom
Instructor:
Soumojit Das, PhD
Visiting Professor of Statistics @ Washington State University
Introduction to Bayesian Data Analysis with R and Stan
This hands-on workshop provides a practical introduction to Bayesian statistical analysis for participants from diverse backgrounds. Over two 2-hour sessions, you’ll learn both the conceptual foundations and computational tools needed to start fitting Bayesian models.
The first session begins by exploring the fundamental differences between classical (frequentist) and Bayesian approaches to statistics, emphasizing how Bayesian methods quantify uncertainty and incorporate prior knowledge. We’ll then dive into practical computing, setting up your R and Stan environment and running your first Bayesian model.
The second session builds on these foundations by working through progressively complex examples, including linear regression and diagnostic checking. You’ll learn how to specify priors, assess model fit, and interpret results. By the end of the workshop, you’ll have hands-on experience with the complete Bayesian workflow and be equipped to continue learning independently.
Prerequisites: Basic familiarity with R (data frames, functions, running scripts) and fundamental statistical concepts (mean, variance, regression). No prior experience with Bayesian statistics or Stan required.
What you’ll gain:
- Understanding of when and why to use Bayesian methods
- Ability to write and run Stan models from R
- Skills to interpret Bayesian model outputs
- Knowledge of diagnostics and troubleshooting approaches
- Resources for continued learning
Slides and files available upon request to ciser.info@wsu.edu
November 6, 2025
Using CISER Services Presented by the College of Medicine Office of Research
12:10-1:00pm – SMED 175 on the WSU – Spokane campus and via Zoom
Presenter:
Assistant Professor (CT) of Statistics @ Washington State University
Learn about the services CISER offers to support WSU researchers!
October 13, 2025
Introduction to JASP Statistical Software
4:15-6:00pm in Spark G0045 and via Zoom
Instructor:
Trey L DeJong, PhD
Assistant Professor (CT) of Statistics @ Washington State University
JASP is a free, open-source statistical software that is aimed at researchers looking for a user-friendly software for conducting commonly utilized statistical analyses. JASP is an excellent alternative to other point-and-click statistics software such as SPSS, JMP, or Minitab. This workshop is intended to introduce researchers to JASP software including importing data for analysis, basics of statistical analysis in JASP, and a demonstration of the software. Analyses may include but are not limited to t-test, ANOVA, linear regression, and mixed/multilevel models.
September 24, 2025
Using GitHub for Research
1:30 – 2:30pm in Spark 323 and via Zoom
Instructors:
Claire Kelling, PhD
Assistant Professor of Statistics @ Carleton College
This introductory session covers version control fundamentals using Git and GitHub for statistics and/or data science projects. Participants learn to use Git as a powerful version control system and GitHub as an online platform for hosting and collaborating on projects. We will use GitHub Desktop and learn core workflow concepts of commit, push, and pull. Through hands-on exercises with data manipulation, participants can practice maintaining code using version control while establishing practices that will benefit their future data science work.