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Statistician Wins Best Application Paper Award

September 3, 2014

Statistician Wins Best Application Paper Award

Matthew Pratola, assistant professor, statistics, won the Wilcoxon Award (with co-authors) for the best application paper for the year 2013. Pratola was lead author of the paper, “Fast Sequential Computer Model Calibration of Large Nonstationary Spatial-Temporal Processes,” which appeared in the May 2013 issue of the journal Technometrics.

Pratola will receive the award at the Fall Technical Conference (a statistics conference) in Richmond, Virginia, October 3-4.

“It is difficult to put into words what it means to win this award,” Pratola said. “It is an incredible honor, especially so early in my career. As an applied statistician who cares greatly about applied interdisciplinary work and the role of statisticians in such work, I felt humbled to be recognized in this capacity by my peers.”

The award is named in honor of the late Frank Wilcoxon who began his career as a chemist and later developed an interest in statistics. He is considered an outstanding example of an industrial statistician whose work was inspired by real problems in the chemical industry.

It is given to the best practical application paper appearing in the statistical journal Technometrics, a statistics journal that emphasizes applications of statistics to problems in engineering and the physical sciences, in a given year.

Bill Notz, professor, statistics, former editor of Technometrics and member of the selection committee, said, “The paper by Matt and his co-authors, ‘Fast Sequential Computer Model Calibration of Nonstationary Spatial-Temporal Processes,’ involves statistical methods for analyzing data generated by computer simulations of a real world phenomenon.

“The methods consider how to combine the simulated data with data from the actual real world phenomenon to predict future observations of the real world phenomenon.

“The application is the effect of electron storms in the upper atmosphere and the methods have attracted the attention of scientists studying the upper atmosphere.”

Pratola is interested in computer model calibration, uncertainty quantification and scalable Bayesian non-parametric regression models applied to environment, climate and environmental health problems.

He has worked on a variety of collaborative interdisciplinary research projects with colleagues from the National Center for Atmospheric Research, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Simon Fraser University, Acadia University and the University of Chicago.

“I have a few ongoing collaborations,” Pratola said, “and currently I have four collaborators on campus, in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and in the College of Public Health.

“Our interest is in studying how second-hand smoke infiltrates apartment dwellings from neighbors or outdoors, the resulting level of contaminated indoor air a resident is exposed to, and how building design impacts exposure levels.

“While we are still in the earliest stages of this research, the fact that this team has come together so quickly to study a problem that requires varied interdisciplinary expertise is a testament to what makes Ohio State such an amazing institution.

“Also, I have to say how wonderful the Department of Statistics is here. It is an incredible department filled with talented and gracious individuals, and to be a young faculty member in this department is a privilege.”

Sandi Rutkowski

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