Professor Eric Vance, a new APPM faculty member as of Fall 2016, has opened the , otherwise known as LISA. The foundation for LISA began at Virginia Tech in 1948 to assist agricultural researchers. When the program was revamped in 2008, Professor Vance became the first director of the new organization. He has since brought his work to ²ÊÃñ±¦µä. The laboratory aims to train statisticians and scientists, establish research infrastructure, and to engage the community in statistical analysis. In the upcoming spring semester, LISA will provide short courses and workshops to increase statistical literacy. LISA collaborators include Professor Vance, one post-doc, six graduate students, and five undergraduate students. These collaborators can help in many ways; they can design experiments, analyze and plot data, run statistical software, interpret results, and communicate statistical concepts to non-statisticians. Currently, all collaborators are within the Applied Mathematics department, but they hope to include members from other departments in the future. A collaboration meeting can be requested .