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.
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.
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)
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
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
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