Simon Mak

Associate Professor of Statistical Science

Appointments and Affiliations

  • Associate Professor of Statistical Science
  • Faculty Network Member of the Duke Institute for Brain Sciences

Contact Information

  • Office Location: 214 Old Chemistry, Box 90251, Durham, NC 27708-0251
  • Email Address: sm769@duke.edu
  • Websites:

Education

  • B.S. Simon Fraser University, 2013
  • Ph.D. Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018
  • M.S. Georgia Institute of Technology, 2018

Courses Taught

  • STA 995: Internship
  • STA 993: Independent Study
  • STA 891: Topics for Preliminary Exam Preparation in Statistical Science
  • STA 790-1: Special Topics in Statistics
  • STA 693: Research Independent Study
  • STA 643: Modern Design of Experiments
  • STA 493: Research Independent Study
  • STA 325L: Machine Learning and Data Mining
  • STA 240L: Probability for Statistical Inference, Modeling, and Data Analysis
  • MATH 228L: Probability for Statistical Inference, Modeling, and Data Analysis

Representative Publications

  • Tachibana, Y., C. Sirimanna, A. Majumder, A. Angerami, R. Arora, S. A. Bass, Y. Chen, et al. “Effect of recoils on soft-drop-groomed observables in γ-tagged jets in a multistage approach.” Physical Review C 113, no. 3 (March 28, 2026). https://doi.org/10.1103/7QXY-FZ41.
  • Li, K., S. Mak, J. F. Paquet, and S. A. Bass. “Additive Multi-Index Gaussian Process Modeling, with Application to Multi-Physics Surrogate Modeling of the Quark-Gluon Plasma.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 121, no. 553 (January 1, 2026): 44–59. https://doi.org/10.1080/01621459.2025.2529025.
  • Wang, X., S. Mak, J. Miller, and J. Wu. “Local Transfer Learning Gaussian Process Modeling, with Applications to Surrogate Modeling of Expensive Computer Simulators.” SIAM Asa Journal on Uncertainty Quantification 14, no. 1 (January 1, 2026): 256–86. https://doi.org/10.1137/24M1703057.
  • Ni-Hahn, S., R. Zhu, J. Yin, Y. Jiang, C. Rudin, and S. Mak. “AutoSchA: Automatic Hierarchical Music Representations via Multi-Relational Node Isolation.” In Proceedings of the Aaai Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 40:24567–75, 2026. https://doi.org/10.1609/aaai.v40i29.39640.
  • Roch, H., G. Pihan, A. Monnai, S. Ryu, N. Senthilkumar, J. Staudenmaier, H. Elfner, et al. “Transport-based initial conditions for heavy-ion collisions at finite densities.” Physical Review C 113, no. 2 (January 1, 2026). https://doi.org/10.1103/PVVM-QGCD.