Eberly College of Science

David Hunter named head of Department of Statistics

David Hunter, professor of statistics at Penn State, has been appointed as head of the University's Department of Statistics. He succeeds Bruce Lindsay, Willaman Professor of Statistics, who had served as head of the department since 2006.

Hunter's research is focused on computational statistics, also known as statistical computing, which is the interface between statistics and computer science. He also works with various methods of statistical modeling such as network models, which are graphical structures representing objects and their relationships, and mixture models, which are probabilistic models used to represent how sub-populations relate to an overall population.

Hunter's previous honors include an Outstanding Teaching Award from the Department of Statistics at the University of Michigan. He has published numerous scientific papers in journals such as Biometrika, the Journal of Nonparametric Statistics, and the Journal of Statistical Software. He has served as associate editor for the Annals of Applied Statistics, Network Science, and the American Statistician, and he has reviewed manuscripts for numerous scientific journals. He is a member of the American Statistical Association, and he has presented invited talks and workshops at scientific symposia across the United States and in Canada, Germany, Spain, Greece, France, Norway, India and China. He has mentored more than 35 Penn State graduate students.

Before joining the Penn State faculty in 1999, Hunter was an instructor at the University of Michigan. He earned a doctoral degree in mathematics at the University of Michigan in 1999, and a bachelor's degree, cum laude, at Princeton University in 1992.

Last Updated July 5, 2012