Utak Agham Season 3, Episode 5

Utak Agham is a series featuring notable alumni from the PSHS-System, made in collaboration with PSHS-MC Batch '76 and the Office of the Executive Director of the PSHS. Recorded episodes are available to view for alumni registered on Pisay.net

This month, we are very excited to present our first guest on data science. Professor Edsel Peña, MC '76 is the Chair of the Department of Statistics at the University of South Carolina (USC). Prior to joining USC in 2000, he was a tenured  full Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He was also a visiting professor at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.

Prof. Peña obtained his MS and PhD degrees in Statistics from Florida State University. He obtained his BS degree in Statistics, magna cum laude, and MS degree in Statistics from the University of the Philippines at Los Baños as an INTAPS/NSDB Scholar. He is an Elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA); Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI); and Elected Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). From 2017 to 2023 he served as Executive Secretary of the IMS. From 2020 to 2023, he served as Program Director of the Statistics Program in the Division of Mathematical Sciences of the US National Science Foundation. His main research areas are in survival and event-time analysis, reliability, mathematical statistics, applied probability, goodness-of-fit testing, multiple testing, and decision-making.

An avid chess enthusiast, Edsel has won numerous trophies in Ohio, Michigan, and South Carolina chess tournaments and continues to play chess online to keep his mind sharp and prevent brain rot.

To learn more about Edsel’s journey from Pisay to the top of his field in data science and  statistics, join us on

Thursday, May 22, 9:00-10:00 PM (US East Coast)

Friday, May 23, 9:00-10:00 AM (Philippines)

The moderator for this episode is Edsel's batchmate, Gil Genio. Gil retired from Globe Telecom where he held several C-level positions including Chief Technology and Information Officer, Chief Strategy Officer, CFO and Head of several business divisions. Since his retirement, Gil has served as a Board Director of other companies and is currently the Board Secretary of the Management Association of the Philippines. 

To register for this episode, please register on pisay.net and go to: https://pisay.net/feed/400218