Max Morris is the new chair of the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University. He succeeds Kenneth Koehler, University Professor, who served as chair since 2003 and remains on the faculty.
The Department of Statistics is coadministered by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
“I am very pleased that Max agreed to lead this internationally ranked department,” said Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean Beate Schmittmann. “His thoughtful and participatory approach to opportunities and challenges will serve him well in this role, and I look forward to working with him.”
“Under Dr. Morris’ leadership, the statistics department will continue to build on its long history of collaborative research and development of a workforce with the skills essential to the gathering and interpreting of scientific information,” said Wendy Wintersteen, endowed dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Morris joined the faculty at Iowa State in 1998 and has a joint appointment in the Department of Statistics and the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering. He is also a faculty affiliate with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and an associate on-site leader with the Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory.
He earned a Ph.D. in statistics from Virginia Tech in 1977. His primary research involves theory and general methodology related to the design of experiments, linear statistical models and Gaussian process models. He is the author of the textbook Design of Experiments: An Introduction Based on Linear Models (Chapman and Hall/CRC – 2010).
Morris is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, and a member of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics and the American Society for Quality.
John Schroeter, professor and interim chair of the Department of Economics, chaired the search committee. “Max Morris is widely respected by his colleagues for his research contributions and his administrative experience,” Schroeter said. “He will lead a strong department forward with a deliberative and impartial approach to decision making.”
Morris’ appointment is effective Nov. 1.