Edsel Peña

Edsel Peña is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Statistics at the University of South Carolina, within the McCausland College of Arts and Sciences. He holds a BS (Magna Cum Laude) from the University of the Philippines Los Baños and a PhD from Florida State University. His research focuses on Mathematical Statistics, Survival Analysis, Reliability, and Biostatistics. Peña has held roles including visiting professorships at the University of Michigan and served as Executive Secretary of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (2017–2023) and NSF Program Director (2020–2023).

Education:

• Bachelor of Science in Statistics, University of the Philippines Los Baños (1979)
• PhD in Statistics, Florida State University (1986)

Research Interests: Peña’s work spans foundational statistical theory, survival analysis applications, and high-dimensional inference. He emphasizes methodological development in reliability systems and nonparametric approaches for recurrent events. His recent work includes optimal correlation-based prediction and asymptotic theory for recurrent event models.

Awards:

• Fellow, American Statistical Association
• Member, International Statistical Institute
• Fellow, Institute of Mathematical Statistics
• Michael Mungo Graduate Teaching Award (University of South Carolina)
• Severino and Paz Koh Lectureship Award

Grants & Leadership: Secured funding from NSF, NIH, and EPA. Served on editorial boards of top journals including the Journal of the American Statistical Association and Scandinavian Journal of Statistics. Currently chairs the Department of Statistics at USC.