Image: Bella Salter is a doctoral student with the Department of Statistics at the University of Georgia. Her research interests include mathematical statistics, especially time-series analysis, and applications in emerging fields. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Arizona in May 2025, majoring in both Mathematics and Computer Science and minoring in Statistics. During her time there, she found a passion for enriching their mathematical community as both a teaching assistant and the vice president of MathCats. Salter’s previous research experience centered around machine learning applications in phenomics, autocorrelation time estimation algorithms for Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods, and applications of statistics in sports analytics. She contributed to a machine learning pipeline to process terabytes of plant data and uniquely identify plants using computer vision in order to track growth throughout the season. She also worked on recurrent neural networks to predict crop yield based on early observations. Additionally, she studied autocorrelation time estimation based on algorithms developed for dynamical systems. Finally, her honors thesis focused on examining optimal player combinations in hockey games utilizing various regression, clustering, and dimensionality reduction methods. As both a rigorous mathematics student and a user of applied statistical methods, Salter enjoys balancing theory with practical methodology, which aligns with the various research and consulting opportunities at UGA. Congratulations, Bella! Type of News/Audience: Departmental
