Maggie Niu

Biography

Dr. Maggie Xiaoyue Niu is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Statistical Consulting Center within the Department of Statistics at The Pennsylvania State University. Her academic career is defined by a deep commitment to advancing statistical methodology and fostering interdisciplinary collaboration. Dr. Niu’s primary research interests include network models, latent variable models, and Bayesian statistics. She actively applies these advanced methodologies to solve challenges in the health and social sciences, as well as in the emerging field of sports analytics. Beyond her core methodological work, she is a recognized expert in the practice and pedagogy of statistical consulting. Dr. Niu earned her Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Washington.

Selected Publications

• J. Wang, X. Cai, X. Niu, R. Li, “Variable Selection for High-dimensional Nodal Attributes in Social Networks with Degree Heterogeneity”, Journal of the American Statistical Association, accepted, 2023+
• B. Kim, X. Niu, D. Hunter, and X. Cao, “A Dynamic Additive and Multiplicative Effects Network Model for United Nations Voting”, Annals of Applied Statistics, accepted, 2023+
• I. Laga, L. Bao, X. Niu, “A Correlated Network Scale-up Model: Finding the Connection Between Subpopulations”, Journal of the American Statistical Association, accepted, 2023+
• X. Niu, “Learning about an Academic Statistical Consulting Center through Data”, Stat, 12(1), 2023
• L. Bao, X. Niu, M. Mahy, P. D. Ghys, “Estimating HIV Epidemics for Sub-national Areas”, Annals of Applied Statistics, accepted, 2022+
• Y. Tao, D. Li, X. Niu, “Grouped Network Poisson Autoregressive Model”, Statistica Sinica, accepted, 2022+
• I. Laga¹, X. Niu¹, K. Rucinski, S. Baral, D. Chen, N. Viswasam, K. Sabin, J. Zhao, J. W. Eaton, L. Bao, “Mapping the population size of female sex worker in countries across sub-Saharan Africa”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(2), 2022
• I. Laga, X. Niu, L. Bao, “Modeling the Marked Presence-only Data: A Case Study of Estimating the Female Sex Worker Size in Malawi”, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 117(537), 2022
• J. Hehir, A. Slakovic, X. Niu, “Consistent Spectral Clustering of Network Block Models under Local Differential Privacy”, Journal of Privacy and Confidentiality, 12(2), 2022
• L. Bao¹, X. Niu¹, Y. Zhang¹, “What We Can Learn from the Exported Cases in Detecting Disease Outbreaks – A Case Study of the COVID-19 Epidemic”, Annals of Epidemiology, 75, 67-72, 2022
• J. Parsons, L. Bao, and X. Niu, “A Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach to combining multiple data sources: A case study in population size estimation”, Annals of Applied Statistics, accepted, 2021+
• X. Cui, F. Zhou, P. Ciais, E. A. Davidson, J. G. Canadell, X. Niu, F. N. Tubiello, X. Ju, A. F. Bouwman, R. B. Jackson, N. D. Mueller, X. Zheng, D. Kanter, H. Tian, W. Adalibieke, Y. Bo, Q. Wang, X. Zhan, D. Zhu, “Global Hotspots of Nitrous Oxide Mitigation Potential”, Nature Food, 2, 886–893, 2021
• I. Laga, L. Bao, X. Niu, “Thirty Years of the Network Scale-up Method”, Journal of the American Statistical Association, 116(535), 1548-1559, 2021
• X. Niu, A. Rao, D. Chen, B. Sheng, S. Weir, E. Umar, G. Trapence, V. Jumbe, D. Kamba, K. Rucinski, N. Viswasam, S. Baral, L. Bao, “Using factor analyses to estimate the number of female sex workers across Malawi from multiple regional sources”, Annals of Epidemiology, 55, 34-40, 2021
• X. Niu, and P.D. Hoff. Joint Mean and Covariance Modeling of Multiple Health Outcomes, Annals of Applied Statistics, 13 (1), 321-339, 2019
• X. Niu and J.L. Rosenberger. Near-Balanced Incomplete Block Designs, with An Application to Poster Competitions, The American Statistician, 73(2), 159-164, 2019
• B. Kim, K. Lee, L. Xue, and X. Niu. A Survey of Dynamic Network Models with Latent Variables, Statistics Surveys, 12(0), 105-135, 2018
• X. Niu, A. Zhang, T. Brown, R. Puckett, M. Mahy, and L. Bao. Incorporation of Hierarchical Structure into EPP Fitting with Examples of Estimating Sub-National HIV/AIDS Dynamics, AIDS,31: S51-S59, 2017
• P.D. Hoff, X. Niu, and J.A. Wellner. Information bounds for Gaussian copulas, Bernoulli, 20(2):604–622, 2014
• P.D. Hoff and X. Niu. A Covariance Regression Model, Statistica Sinica, 22(2): 729-753, 2012
• A.E. Raftery, X. Niu, P.D. Hoff, and K.Y. Young. Fast Inference for Latent Space Network Models using Case-control Likelihoods, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics. 21:901–919, 2012

Teaching

STAT 580/581 - Statistical Consulting Practicum I/II

STAT 597 - Statistical Analysis of Network Data