Alyssa Columbus
DEEN

Teaching & Mentoring

I teach statistics and data science with an emphasis on judgment, helping students decide what a model can support and when their work is complete, and the Johns Hopkins Department of Biostatistics recognized that approach with its 2026 Helen Abbey Award for Excellence in Teaching. In all, I’ve held about 20 course appointments at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Irvine.

Teaching Awards

  • Helen Abbey Award for Excellence in Teaching, Johns Hopkins Department of Biostatistics (2026), given to one graduate student each year on the basis of student evaluations and review by the department’s awards and honors committee
  • Teaching Assistant Recognition Award, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (2025), one of five teaching assistants across the school nominated and selected by students
  • Teaching Academy Fellowship, Johns Hopkins Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation (2024)

Selected Teaching at Johns Hopkins

  • Guest Faculty, Practical Skills in Using Generative AI in Public Health (2026)
  • Teaching Assistant, Data Science for Public Health in Python; AI for Public Health in Python (2025-26)
  • Teaching Assistant, Advanced Data Science I and II (2025)
  • Lead Teaching Assistant, Statistical Methods in Public Health (2023-24)
  • Guest lectures on the social, legal, and ethical aspects of AI in medicine and public health, and on relational databases and Structured Query Language (SQL) in R

Curriculum and Mentoring

Mentees of mine have gone on to doctoral programs and to careers outside academia, including an undergraduate statistics student who’s now a Vivien Thomas Scholar in the Johns Hopkins biostatistics PhD program and a mentee I advised while they worked in industry, who finished a Johns Hopkins master’s degree and is now a senior software engineer in data science at LinkedIn. In all, I’ve advised more than 150 people at every career stage, in countries such as the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and The Gambia, on paths into statistics and research careers.

  • Mentor, United Kingdom Research and Innovation Policy Fellowship (since 2026)
  • Pre-graduate mentor, Project SHORT
  • Mentor and judge, ASA Undergraduate Statistics Project Competition (2022-26)
  • Instructor and lesson maintainer, The Carpentries, including Spanish-language lesson translation
  • Advanced Placement Research Reader, College Board (since 2025)