DMS Staff & Statistics Faculty 2019
Department of Mathematical Sciences (DMS) during AY 2018-2019
Department Head:
Dr. Elizabeth Burroughs, Professor of Mathematics Education
Wilson Hall 2-212
Department Staff: 2-214 Wilson Hall
Stacie Rath, Business/Operations Manager & Budget - Grants
Katie Sutich, Program Coordinator II, Undergraduate and Graduate Program
Jane Crawford, Administrative Assoc. III
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Statistics Faculty and Staff:3
Tenure Track Statistics Professors
Dr. Katharine Banner, Assistant Professor of Statistics
Wilson Hall 2-196, (406) 994-5367, [email protected]
Dr. Banner believes, as statisticians, we have a responsibility to not only develop
methodology for addressing specific research questions, but to also provide tools
for assessing when those methods are appropriate to use. She is interested in developing
tools and guidelines (e.g., R packages for visualizing data/results) for practitioners
to aid in understanding complex (and often popular) methods so that they can make
informed decisions about when to use them. Currently, she collaborates with a team
of statisticians, ecologists, and bat biologists to develop appropriate methodology
for informing conservation and management decisions for the geographically-extensive
North American bat monitoring program. This work has sparked a general interest in
the use and development of Bayesian methods for ecological applications.
Professor John Borkowski, Professor of Statistics, Certificate in Applied Statistics , Statistics Group Representative to the Graduate
Program Committee
Wilson Hall 2-194, (406) 994-4606, [email protected]
Dr. Borkowski has been a faculty member in the Department of Mathematical Science
at Montana State University since 1991 and a Professor of Statistics since 2003. His
primary research and teaching interests include experimental design, response surface
methodology, and sampling. His recent research is focused on optimal design of experiments,
mixture experiments, and adaptive cluster sampling. He has also been a Visiting Professor
at Thammasat University in Thailand since 2005.
Dr. Nicole Carnegie, Assistant Professor of Statistics
Wilson Hall 2-242, (406) 994-3123, [email protected]
Dr. Carnegie's research focuses on the intersections between causal inference, infectious
disease modeling, and networks. This includes network-based infectious disease models
to inform strategies for HIV prevention and methodologic work on making causal inferences
in infectious disease settings, where observations are inherently not independent.
She has a line of research developing methods for analyzing potential sensitivity
of causal inferences to unobserved confounding in a variety of settings, including
multilevel models and Bayesian Additive Regression Trees. For fun, she occasionally
enters predictive modeling or causal inference competitions using BART.
Dr. Jennifer Green, Associate Professor of Statistics Education
Wilson Hall 2-225, (406) 994-5332, [email protected]
Dr. Green's interests include developing strategies and methods to enhance and assess
educational programs in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)- related
disciplines. Her research focuses on the development of statistical methodology to
characterize the impact of professional development and educational programs on teacher
effectiveness and student learning, and she collaborates with others in the mathematical
and educational sciences to create innovative approaches for developing teachers of
statistics in grades K-16 and beyond.
Dr. Mark Greenwood, Professor of Statistics
Wilson Hall 2-228, (406) 994-1962, [email protected]
Dr. Greenwook does research on statistical methods for high dimensional and correlated
data. This includes supervised and unsupervised classification and high-dimensional
testing problems such as those encountered when working with functional data (data
that are recorded or can be treated as curves). Additional interests include hierarchical
and generalized additive models and methods for incorporating measurement error into
statistical models. Application areas include health outcomes related to Multiple
Sclerosis and long-term body mass index changes, longitudinal environmental data related
to hydrology and climate change, multi-level educational data, with some growing interests
in sports statistics.
Dr. Stacey Hancock, Assistant Professor of Statistics
Wilson Hall 2-195, (406) 994-5350, [email protected]
Dr. Hancock's primary research interests lie in statistics education. Currently, she
is exploring how students use metaphors and metonymies when learning statistical concepts
related to sampling distributions and informal statistical inference. Additional research
topics include time series analysis, specifically, change-point detection, and statistical
applications in ecology.
Dr. Andrew Hoegh, Assistant Professor of Statistics
Wilson Hall 2-241, (406) 994-5340, [email protected]
Dr. Hoegh's research is largely focused on Bayesian computation with an emphasis on
spatial and spatiotemporal modeling. Within that realm, Dr. Hoegh works on projects
related to environmental and ecological research and occasionally sports analytics.
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Non-Tenure Track Faculty
Dr. Jeff Carnegie, Assistant Teaching Professor in Statistics and Political Science
Linfield Hall 401
Justin Gomez, Instructor in Mathematics and Statistics
Linfield Hall 401
Elizabeth Mery, Instructor in Mathematics and Statistics
Wilson Hall 2-260
Greta Peterson, Instructor in Mathematics and Statistics
Wilson Hall 2-197
Matthew Pettigrew, Instructor in Mathematics and Statistics
Linfield Hall 401
Jade Schmidt, Assistant Teaching Professor of Statistics & Student Success Coordinator
Wilson Hall 2-263
Sabrina Stites, Assistant Teaching Prof of Mathematics & Statistics & MLC Coordinator/ MTC Coordinator
Wilson Hall 2-260
Melinda Yager, Instructor of Statistics
Wilson Hall 1-145
Research and Affiliate Faculty
Dr. Martha Ellis, Research Scientist in Mathematics and Statistics
Dr. Megan Higgs, Associate Research Professor of Statistics & Director of Statistical
Consulting (until July 1, 2019),
A.J.M. Johnson Hall #103A
Dr. Higgs is a Research Faculty member and is currently working as a statistician
for Neptune and Company, Inc and the Director of the Statistics Consulting Research
Center at MSU. She is currently interested in Bayesian decision analysis, problems
involving multiple spatial and/or temporal scales, and adaptive sampling methods.
Dr. Kathi Irvine, Affiliate Faculty in Statistics
I am a Research Statistician with the U.S. Geological Survey at the Northern Rocky
Mountain Science Center in Bozeman, Montana. My statistical research evolves from
collaborations with ecologists that study bats, plants, and trees and are involved
with long term monitoring to inform management of natural resources. I have mentored
Statistics students for writing projects and supported graduate research assistants
at Montana State University (MSU). Several of my students have participated in writing
peer-reviewed papers during their time at MSU. I encourage students interested in
applied statistical work with ecological applications to contact me for possible graduate
research assistantships, paid summer work, and other opportunities.
Dr. Al Parker, Assistant Research Professor of Mathematics and Statistics
Resident Biostatistician, Center for Biofilm Engineering, Barnard Hall 304
Graduate Assistants (32, not listed here)
Emeritus and Retired Faculty
Jeffrey D. Banfield, Associate Professor of Statistics, Retired 2012, statistical computation, pattern recognition; PhD(1987) Univ.of Washington, MS (1982) Univ. of Arkansas, B.S. (1979) Colorado State Univ.
Robert J. Boik, Professor Emeritus of Statistics, Retired 2009, multivariate statistics, linear models, statistical theory; PhD(1984) and MS (1982) Temple Univ., PhD (1975) and M.A. (1973) Baylor Univ., B.A. (1971) Univ. of St. Thomas
Steve Cherry, Professor Emeritus of Statistics, Retired 2017, statistical applications in ecology and environmental science; PhD (1994) and MS (1990) Montana State University
James F. Robison-Cox, Professor Emeritus of Statistics, Retired 2016, nonlinear and generalized linear models, stat computing, stat consulting, and stat education; PhD(1991) Iowa State University, M.A. (1988) University of Montana, B.S. (1984) Montana State University
Warren W. Esty, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Retired 2015, probability theory, mathematics education; PhD (1973) and M.A. (1967) University of Wisconsin, B.A. (1966) Oberlin College
Martin A. Hamilton, Professor Emeritus of Statistics, Retired 2002, biostatistics, statistical inference; PhD (1968) Stanford University, MS (1962) and B.S. (1961) University of Wyoming
Richard E. Lund, Professor Emeritus of Statistics; Retired 1995, agricultural statistics; PhD (1967) Iowa State University, MS (1960 and 1963) University of Wyoming, B.A. (1957) University of Nebraska Omaha.
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Last revised: 2021-04-19