Congratulations to the student and staff recipients in the University of Washington Department of Biostatistics who were recognized with 2025 UW School of Public Health (SPH) Excellence Awards.
Every year, SPH recognizes individuals from each department for their exemplary work and academic achievements. Student award winners will also be recognized as part of the department graduation ceremony to be held later in June.
Outstanding Student Awards
Yunhan Wu
Outstanding PhD Student, Biostatistics
Yunhan Wu is a senior student who is graduating from the Biostatistics PhD program. He is advised by Jon Wakefield, professor of biostatistics and statistics, who supervised Yunhan’s dissertation work on “Methods and Software for Small Area Estimation in Low- and Middle-Income Countries."
Yunhan’s dissertation blends design-based inference from survey sampling with Bayesian smoothing over time, space and demographic characteristics (e.g. age) and leads to the development of new classification algorithms to create urban/rural maps across countries.
“His research has led to the development of methods and software that are being widely used to monitor key health outcomes, such as child mortality, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly in sub-Saharan Africa,” said Wakefield.
Those who nominated Yunhan say he has lucid and well-organized writing skills and gives excellent presentations, clearly explaining difficult concepts with great enthusiasm. Yunhan has a strong presence within the Biostatistics department as well as with professional organizations. He is regarded as a great mentor for our junior doctoral students and he did well as a teaching assistant for BIOST 310. Yunhan’s work has been utilized by the World Health Organization (WHO) to determine resource distributions and needs.
Tengfei Cui
Outstanding MS Student, Biostatistics
Tengfei Cui is a graduating student in the Master of Science in Biostatistics Thesis program, and is advised by Assistant Professor of Biostatistics Guanghao Qi on the topic “Differential Allelic Expression Using Single-cell Data”.
Tengfei recently presented his thesis work at the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2024 Annual Meeting and at the 2025 UW Medical Data Science Symposium.
“Tengfei is an outstanding, highly motivated student, who I have no doubt will succeed in his future research,” said Qi.
Wu and Cui were also nominated for the Gilbert S. Omenn Award for Academic Excellence which is given to one student by the UW School of Public Health each year. Student award winners will also be recognized as part of the department graduation ceremony later in June.
Outstanding Staff Awards
Matt Conomos
Outstanding Research Staff
Matt Conomos is a senior research scientist and project manager at the Genetic Analysis Center (GAC). In his role, Matt skillfully and expertly covers a range of responsibilities spanning research scientist management and staff supervision, statistical consulting and scientific input on active projects, data management and analysis, budget monitoring and preparation, grant writing and strategic planning.
One of the individuals who nominated Matt said, “In addition to exceeding expectations across this wide range of activities, Matt is also a gracious, pleasant and industrious colleague with whom internal and external collaborators enjoy working.”
Thomas Nelson
Outstanding Administrative Staff
Thomas Nelson is an information technology specialist for the department. Members who nominated Thomas unanimously consider him an asset to the department with excellent job performance, integrity, and flexibility, and someone who is always kind, helpful, and responsive.
“His preparation and reliability have truly made my job so much easier, and I’m deeply grateful for all that he does,” said one department member.
