Colloquium - Ying Hung - April 23, 2026

Speaker: Ying Hung, Rutgers University
Date/Time: Thursday, April 23, 2026, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM ET

Title: Simulator Selection and Applications in Robotics

Abstract: Computer simulators are widely used for the study of complex systems. In many applications, there are multiple simulators available with different scientific interpretations of the underlying mechanism, and the goal is to identify an optimal simulator based on the observed physical experiments. To achieve the goal, we propose a simulator selection framework based on miscoverage risk and a conformal inference procedure. A new Stein's unbiased risk estimator is introduced, and the finite-sample risk control is derived. The proposed method is applied to study migration patterns across various simulators. The selected model reveals distinct movement trends in specific regions, providing insights into urban development and resource allocation planning. Beyond simulator selection, recent applications of computer simulations in robotics is discussed, including a novel procedure that integrates statistical surrogate modeling and algebraic topology to characterize nonlinear dynamical systems.

Bio: Ying Hung is a Professor in the Department of Statistics at Rutgers University, where she has been a faculty member since 2008. She earned her Ph.D. from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Professor Hung’s research focuses on experimental design, Gaussian process modeling, and uncertainty quantification, with applications across science and engineering. She is actively involved in interdisciplinary collaborations that address complex real-world problems through efficient designs and advanced statistical methodologies. She was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2022 and the American Statistical Association in 2024, and is a recipient of both the NSF CAREER Award and the IMS Tweedie New Researcher Award.

Website: https://sites.google.com/view/ying-hung