Dr. Stuart A. Harlin '83 endowed the second faculty chair in A&M's Department of Statistics.
Florida physician Stuart A. Harlin, who earned a bachelor of science in zoology from Texas A&M University in 1983, is giving back to help both his alma mater and the future of his profession by creating an endowed faculty chair in the College of Science's Department of Statistics.
The Jill and Stuart A. Harlin '83 Chair in Statistics is only the second created within the department. Statistician H. Joseph Newton, dean of the College of Science, has held the first, the George P. Mitchell '40 Chair in Statistics, since 2006. "I am blessed to be able to contribute to Texas A&M and will endeavor to endow more as time passes," Harlin said.
The Harlin Chair is intended to support the teaching, research, service and professional development activities of the holder, whose academic focus shall be in the field of medical and public health statistics.
"Dr. Harlin's generous gift will have a major impact on the use of statistics in medical areas—something close to both him and the Department of Statistics," Newton said. "We indeed are fortunate that his forward-thinking generosity has made this possible."
In February, Dr. Raymond J. Carroll, distinguished professor of statistics, was appointed the inaugural holder of the Harlin Chair. “[Stuart’s] interest in the use of statistics led him to endow the chair, and I hope to be a worthy first holder of the chair, which will benefit the department in the long term," Carroll said.
Dr. Raymond J. Carroll was named the inaugural holder of the Jill and Stuart A. Harlin '83 Chair in Statistics.
A member of the faculties of nutrition and toxicology, Carroll is one of the world's leading experts in a host of statistical areas, primarily problems of measurement error, statistical regression modeling and statistical methods in genomics. He is internationally renowned as the founder of nonlinear measurement error modeling—the quantification of uncertainty in statistical regression when predictors cannot be accurately ascertained. His methods in this area are widely used in nutritional and radiation epidemiology, and the related book he co-authored in 2005 is considered the definitive treatment of the field.
"It is a great honor to be named to the Harlin Chair, an appointment that serves as a tangible acknowledgment of my research contributions and standing in the field, the effort I have made to raise the national and international visibility of the department, and the mentoring I have done of junior faculty, postdocs and graduate students here at Texas A&M, and elsewhere," said Carroll, who is using the income from the endowment to help fund his overall research program.
Carroll, who is director of the Texas A&M Institute for Applied Mathematics and Computational Statistics (IAMCS) and founding director of the Center for Statistical Bioinformatics, earned his Ph.D. in statistics from Purdue University and spent 13 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill prior to joining the Texas A&M Statistics faculty in 1987.
"One important reason that our statistics department is so highly ranked internationally is because we are fortunate to have Ray Carroll on our faculty," Newton said. "Adding this endowed chair to his long list of honors pays great testament to his extraordinary accomplishments, both in developing new methodology and in working with many scientists and medical professionals in applying his new methods. It is fitting that Ray would be the inaugural holder of the chair endowed by a physician of such high esteem as Dr. Harlin."
Texas A&M Foundation
The Texas A&M Foundation is a nonprofit organization that solicits and manages investments in academics and leadership programs to enhance Texas A&M’s capability to be among the best universities.
You can support research like this in the College of Science at Texas A&M University with a gift of an endowment to the Texas A&M Foundation. For additional information or to learn more about scholarships, research and program-focused giving to benefit the college, contact Don Birkelbach '70 with the Foundation at (800) 392-3310, (979) 845-7560 or dbirkelbach@txamfoundation.com.
