Murali Haran named head of department of statistics in Penn State University

Murali Haran, professor of statistics, has been named the new head of the department of statistics at Penn state, effective July 1. Haran succeeds David Hunter, professor of statistics, who had served as head of the department since 2012.

“Murali has a distinguished record of service and management in the department of statistics,” stated Douglas Cavaner, Verne M. Willaman Dean of the Eberly college of science. “I'm confident that he will lead the department to further achievement and excellence.”

Haran served as chair of undergraduate research for the department from 2012 to 2016 and has been part in numerous committees at the department and university level throughout his tenure at Penn state. He additionally has supported the position of statistics across diverse campus initiatives and institutes, for example through working with the Institute for Cyberscience and Penn state climate science research groups, together with the national science foundation-supported studies network SCRiM (Sustainable climate danger management). Haran additionally organizes a weekly seminar series on “Stochastic Modeling and Computing,” which he started in 2012. This collection offers a forum for speakers from throughout the university who have interests in statistical methods.

Murali Haran

In his research, Haran develops statistical methods for understanding complicated physical phenomena, together with ice sheet dynamics and ailment transmission, by way of combining information from computer simulations and noisy observational data. His studies is heavily centered on developing efficient computing algorithms, specifically simulation processes known as Monte Carlo methods, and on statistical models for spatial data. Much of his methodological research is inspired by cross-disciplinary research problems in climate science and disease modeling. With collaborators in the department of Geosciences and the center for Infectious disease Dynamics at Penn state, he has used statistical models for research topics as varied as the past and future of the Antarctic ice sheet, and the effect of vaccination on the transmission of infectious diseases like measles and rotavirus.

Haran’s research accomplishments were identified with an Abdel El-Shaarawi young Researcher Award from the international Environmetrics Society in 2015 and a young Investigator Award from the american Statistical association section on statistics and the environment in 2014. Haran has published almost 50 articles in scientific journals, together with the journal of the american Statistical association, the journal of the Royal Statistical Society series B and C, Nature, Nature climate change, the journal of climate, and the Annals of applied statistics. Haran is an elected member of the international statistics Institute and a Fellow of the american Statistical association.

Haran joined the faculty at Penn state in 2004 and was promoted to associate professor in 2010 and to professor in 2016. Before  joining Penn state, he was a postdoctoral fellow on the national Institute of Statistical Sciences from 2003 to 2004. He earned master’s and doctoral degrees in statistics from the university of Minnesota in 2001 and 2003, respectively, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science at Carnegie Mellon university in 1997.