BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

My Beginning in Statistics

When I was an undergraduate student studying mathematics at Austin Peay State University, Professor Jim Ridenhour was an influential role model.  In the classroom he was meticulous, supportive, and naturally funny.  I learned so much from him about the difference between a student who was simply working toward a degree and a student who was passionately studying.  A probability and statistics course with Prof. Ridenhour changed the way I viewed mathematics.  I saw that it wasn’t just interesting and fun, but it also was actually very useful!  Statistics as a discipline has fed both my practical and creative sides.  Over the course of my career I have been fortunate to encounter some inspiring role models.     

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My Career Begins

After finishing my MS and PhD degrees in Statistics at Iowa State University, I went to work at AT&T Bell Laboratories.  I started as a member of technical staff, became a distinguished member of technical staff, and then moved into leadership as a technical manager.  I worked with engineers, computer scientists, physicist, and chemists and helped AT&T build highly reliable next generation telecommunications equipment.  My exposure to real-world problems and a corporate environment have influenced my research directions and collaborative leadership skills.  For most of my time at Bell Labs, I was also a part-time lecturer in the Department of Statistics at Rutgers University.  I fondly remember teaching Thursday night MS-level statistics classes.  I quickly found out how much I like preparing to give good lectures, and how much I like motivating students to apply themselves. 

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Change Can Be Very Good

I often embrace change, and after 17 years at Bell Labs I decided to switch careers and move to the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Riverside (UCR).  I had high expectations when I came to UCR, but I never imagined it would work out so well. I have terrific colleagues in my department, and across the entire campus, and these rankings suggest something great is happening right now at UCR:

• #1 in the country for social mobility (US News 2020)

• #9 among public universities (Money Magazine)

• #12 among public universities for 'best value colleges' (Forbes Magazine)

• Top 1% of the Worlds' Universities (Center for World University Rankings)

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Academic Experience Highlights​​

• 20 graduated PhD students

• 17 years as Professor in UCR Department of Statistics

• 14 years as director of the UCR Statistical Consulting Collaboratory

• 10 years as Visiting Part-Time Lecturer in Rutgers Department of Statistics

• 7 years as chair of UCR department of statistics

• 5 years as the UCR faculty athletic representative

• 3 years as the chair of the UCR academic senate committee on faculty welfare 

• 3 years as a Vice-Chair on the ASA Council of Chapters Governing Board

• 3 years as a member of the ASA Board of Directors

• 3 years as associate editor of Technometrics

• 2 years as president of the southern California chapter of the ASA

• 1 year biostatistics sabbatical at the City of Hope medical center

• 1 year as member of the UCR Clinical Institutional Research Board

• 1 year as Vice Provost of Administrative Resolution at UCR

• Current Vice Provost of Academic Personnnel at UCR

• Primary research areas:  statistical process control, classification methodologies, reliability modeling, engineering applications, and biostatistics applications

• Research support includes grants from DHS, NIH, NSF and some California agencies

• Collaborative research within the life sciences

• Elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association 

• Elected Member of International Statistical Institure 

• Graduate of The University of California Systemwide Leadership Collaborative 

• Current associate editor of Applied Stochastic Models in Business and Industry

• Current editor-in-chief of The American Statistician

• Current President-elect of the International Society for Statistics in Business and Industry 

• Current member of the Program Affiliates committee of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences 

• Elected member to the Board of Trustees of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences

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Industry Experience Highlights​

• 17 years at Bell Laboratories

  • Roles as a Member of Technical Staff, a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, and Technical Manager

  • Leadership role for a small group (3-5 members) of statisticians and reliability engineers

  • Hardware, Software and Network reliability modeling

  • Performance analysis modeling using queuing networks

  • Co-inventor on 10 U.S. Patents 

• Statistical consulting with large companies such as VMWare, Sonus, National Football League, Carestream Health, Alere, and Del Monte

  • Inspiration for PhD dissertation topics 

  • Collaborative publications with industry colleagues and students

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Government Experience Highlights​

• 10 years consulting for the Mathematical Analysis Research Corporation (MARC), a sub-contractor to the U.S. Navy

  • Risk Assessment

  • Probit Modeling

  • Tolerance interval analyses

  • Reconciliation of test and field failure data​​​

  • Collaborative publications with MARC employees, and UCR faculty/students