Sam Baugh

Sam Baugh is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Pennsylvania State University's Department of Statistics since Fall 2023. He holds a PhD from UCLA (2022) and MS/BS degrees from the University of Chicago. His research focuses on developing statistical methods for climate change impacts, spatio-temporal modeling, Bayesian hierarchical approaches, and psychometrics, with collaborations in medicine/public health.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Statistics, UCLA (2022)
• MS in Statistics, University of Chicago (Advisor: Michael Stein)
• BS in Mathematics, University of Chicago

Research interests emphasize climate science applications, including ocean/atmosphere changes and extreme event probabilities. Methodologically, he specializes in:

• Bayesian hierarchical models
• Spatio-temporal statistics
• Computational approximations
• Psychometric modeling

Recent work spans climate attribution studies, medical AI applications, and latent variable modeling. His publications demonstrate cross-disciplinary impact across climate science, surgery outcomes, and educational measurement.

Awards include the NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship (2022-2023) and UCLA's Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award (2022).

Collaborates with institutions like Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and medical teams in plastic surgery research. Active in both environmental and health-related statistical method development.