معرفی
Katherine B. Ensor is the Noah G. Harding Professor of Statistics at Rice University's George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing. She serves as Director of the Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems (CoFES) and previously led the Kinder Institute Urban Data Platform (UDP). Her expertise spans statistical methods for complex problems in public health, environmental science, and finance. Ensor has a 35-year academic career at Rice, including 14 years as Department Chair. She pioneered wastewater surveillance for pathogens, expanding to monitor 29 communicable illnesses through Houston Wastewater Epidemiology.
Education: Ph.D. in Statistics (Texas A&M University), M.S. and B.S.E. in Mathematics (Arkansas State University). Research focuses on high-dimensional time series, spatial processes, Bayesian methods, and computational finance. She leads interdisciplinary initiatives, such as the UDP providing urban data for Greater Houston studies.
Research interests include data science applications in public health, environmental analytics, and quantitative finance. Her work bridges academia and community, addressing issues like flood impacts via the Texas Flood Registry and asthma surveillance through collaborations with Houston Health Department. Ensor chairs the National Academies committee on Statistics in Science and Engineering and holds leadership roles in AAAS and ASA.
Awards include the ASA Founders Award (2024), AAAS Fellowship (2013), and Texas A&M's Distinguished Former Students honor. She advises on national boards, including NSF's IPAM and ABET's CSAB. Her grants and collaborations drive innovations in statistical methods for societal challenges.
Labs/Teams: Co-directs Houston Wastewater Epidemiology and Rice Environmental Statistics & Health (RESH) group with Dr. Loren Hopkins. Active in CoFES, UDP, and the Kinder Institute's urban data initiatives.
