Robert E. Kass is the Maurice Falk Professor of
Statistics and
Computational Neuroscience
Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, computer simulations, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to u ...
in the Department of Statistics and Data Science, the
Machine Learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of inquiry devoted to understanding and building methods that 'learn', that is, methods that leverage data to improve performance on some set of tasks. It is seen as a part of artificial intelligence.
Machine ...
Department, and the Neuroscience Institute at
Carnegie Mellon University.
Early life and education
Born in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
,
Massachusetts
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(1952), Kass earned a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four year ...
degree in mathematics from
Antioch College
Antioch College is a private liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1852 as a non-sectarian institution; politician and education reformer Horace Mann was its ...
, and a
PhD degree in Statistics from the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
in 1980, where his advisor was
Stephen Stigler
Stephen Mack Stigler (born August 10, 1941) is Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor at the Department of Statistics of the University of Chicago. He has authored several books on the history of statistics; he is the son of the e ...
. Kass is the son of the late Harvard medical researcher
Edward H. Kass and stepson of
Amalie M. Kass.
Research and publications
Kass's early research was on
differential geometry in statistics, which formed the basis for his book ''Geometrical Foundations of Asymptotic Inference'' (with Paul Vos), and on Bayesian methods. Since 2000 his research has focused on statistical methods in neuroscience.
Kass is a highly cited author whose best-known work includes papers on
Bayes factors (with
Adrian Raftery
Adrian E. Raftery (born 1955 in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish and American statistician and sociologist. He is the Boeing International Professor of Statistics and Sociology, and founding Director of the Center for Statistics and Social Scie ...
),
prior distributions (with
Larry A. Wasserman),
the relationship of Bayes and Empirical Bayes methods with Duane Steffey,
the application of point process statistical models to neural spiking data (Kass and Ventura; DiMatteo, Genovese, and Kass),
the challenges of multiple spike train analysis (Brown, Kass, and Mitra; Kass, Ventura, and Brown),
the state-space approach to brain-computer interface (Brockwell, Rojas, and Kass), and the brain's apparent ability to solve the credit assignment problem during brain-controlled robotic movement (Jarosciewicz et al.)). Kass's book Analysis of Neural Data (with Emery Brown and Uri Eden) was published in 2014.
Kass has also written on statistics education and the use of statistics, including the articles, "What is Statistics?" (with Emery Brown), "Statistical Inference: The Big Picture," and "Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice" (with Brian Caffo, Marie Davidian, Xiao-Li Meng, and Nancy Reid).
Professional and administrative activities
Kass has served Chair of the Section for Bayesian Statistical Science of the
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
, Chair of the Statistics Section of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, founding Editor-in-Chief of
Bayesian Analysis (journal)
''Bayesian Analysis'' is an open-access peer-reviewed scientific journal covering theoretical and applied aspects of Bayesian methods. It is published by the International Society for Bayesian Analysis and is hosted at the Project Euclid web sit ...
, and Executive Editor (editor-in-chief) of the international review journal
Statistical Science. At Carnegie Mellon he was Department Head of Statistics from 1995 to 2004 and Interim Co-director of the joint CMU-University of Pittsburgh Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition 2015–2018.
Honors
Kass is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the
Institute of Mathematical Statistics
The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts o ...
, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. For his work on statistical modeling of neural synchrony (Kass, Kelly, Loh
), in 2013 he received the Outstanding Statistical Application Award from the
American Statistical Association
The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...
, and in 2017 he received the R.A. Fisher Award and Lectureship (now known as the
COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship) from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kass, Robert
Living people
Carnegie Mellon University faculty
American statisticians
Antioch College alumni
University of Chicago alumni
Fellows of the American Statistical Association
1952 births