Bio

Short Biography

John Stufken was born and raised in Schaesberg, now part of the city of Landgraaf, in the province of Limburg, which is the most southern province of the Netherlands. He finished his high school education at Eijkhagen College in 1974, and was accepted at the University of Nijmegen (now Radboud University) to study mathematics. This resulted eventually in a Kandidaats degree with a minor in physics (1979) and a Doctoraal degree, with a thesis in mathematical economics (1982). These degrees were roughly equivalent to BS and MS degrees.

In 1982, after meeting professor TES Raghavan in the Netherlands and being recruited by him, Stufken joined the University of Illinois at Chicago to study game theory. Gradually it dawned on him that his passion lied elsewhere, eventually resulting in a PhD dissertation (1986) on design of experiments supervised by professor AS Hedayat.

In an era where postdoc positions in statistics were rare, Stufken immediately landed a tenure track position. Under the motto that change can be invigorating, his professional path led him to Athens, GA (1986-1988), Ames, IA (1988-2000), Arlington, VA (2000-2003), again Athens, GA (2003-2014), Tempe, AZ (2014-2019), Greensboro, NC (2019-2022), and Fairfax, VA (2022-present). Promotions to associate and full professor occurred at Iowa State University. From 2000-2003, Stufken was Program Director for Statistics at the National Science Foundation, which was followed by an 11-year period as Head of the Department of Statistics at the University of Georgia. From 2014-2019, Stufken worked as Coordinator of Statistics at Arizona State University, after which he assumed a position as Director of Informatics and Analytics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (2019-2022).

Stufken's primary research interests are in design and analysis of experiments as well as in extracting information from data, small or large. His work has been published continuously in top professional journals and has in most years been supported by the National Science Foundation. A considerable portion of his teaching experience is also on design and analysis of experiments, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and both for statistics and non-statistics students. He has been the recipient of recognitions for both research and teaching excellence.

Stufken is an Elected Fellow of both the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (2000) and the American Statistical Association (2001). He is also an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute (2005). He was the Rothschild Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Design and Analysis of Experiments workshop in 2011 at the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences. From 2014-2019, he held the Charles Wexler Endowed Professorship in the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences at Arizona State University. From 2019-2022, he was a Bank of America Excellence Professor at the University of North Carolina Greensboro.

Additional details can be found on his CV and under other tabs of this website.