I’m a passionate data analyst who enjoys research and likes to work on challenging applied problems. My research focuses on cluster analysis and I’ve worked as data scientist in many applied fields.
Email: tortorac1 at gmail dot com
Current research includes model-based clustering, clustering algorithms, mixed-type data analysis, dimension reduction, outlier detection, clustering with missing values, and fuzzy clustering.
Cristina started working at San Jose State University (SJSU) in 2016. Before joining SJSU, Cristina was a postdoctoral research fellow at McMaster University (Canada) in 2015, at the University of Guelph (Canada) in 2013, and at the Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn of Naples (Italy) in 2012. She completed her Ph.D. at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Naples “Federico II” in February 2012.
Cristina won the Chikio Hayashi Award for young researchers in 2019 and the SJSU College of Science Award for research with and mentoring of Students in 2024. She served as President of the San Francisco Bay Area ASA Chapter in 2022 and is currently the Communication Director. She was also elected director of the Classification Society from 2022 to 2026.
Cristina was a visiting professor at the University of Catania, Italy (Summer 2022, Fall 2024), the University of Pretoria, South Africa (Summer 2024, 2025) the University of Naples Federico II (Italy) (Summer of 2025, 2021 and 2017, Winter 2024), and McEwan University Alberta (Canada) in 2019. She was also a visiting student at CEREMADE Paris Dauphine.
Cristina qualified as a Full Professor in Statistics in Italy in December 2023, as an Associate Professor in Statistics in Italy in June 2020, and as “Maître de Conférences” in applied mathematics in 2013, France. She obtained her Master's degree in Statistics (Statistica per le decisioni e l’analisi dei sistemi complessi) at the University of Naples “Federico II” in 2008. She obtained her Master 2 (Économie quantitative des comportements et des marchés) at the University “Lumiére Lyon II” in 2009.