Katherine Bennett Ensor is an American statistician specializing in numerous methods in

computation A computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that is well-defined. Common examples of computation are mathematical equation solving and the execution of computer algorithms. Mechanical or electronic devices (or, hist ...

al and

statistical analysis Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying probability distribution.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical analysis infers properties of ...

time series In mathematics, a time series is a series of data points indexed (or listed or graphed) in time order. Most commonly, a time series is a sequence taken at successive equally spaced points in time. Thus it is a sequence of discrete-time data. ...

data,

stochastic process In probability theory and related fields, a stochastic () or random process is a mathematical object usually defined as a family of random variables in a probability space, where the index of the family often has the interpretation of time. Sto ...

modeling, and estimation to forecast issues in

public health Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the de ...

, community

informatics Informatics is the study of computational systems. According to the Association for Computing Machinery, ACM Europe Council and Informatics Europe, informatics is synonymous with computer science and computing as a profession, in which the centra ...

computational finance Computational finance is a branch of applied computer science that deals with problems of practical interest in finance.Rüdiger U. Seydel, ''Tools for Computational Finance'', Springer; 3rd edition (May 11, 2006) 978-3540279235 Some slightly diff ...

, and

environmental statistics Environment statistics is the application of statistical methods to environmental science. It covers procedures for dealing with questions concerning the natural environment in its undisturbed state, the interaction of humanity with the environmen ...

. Ensor is the Noah G. Harding Professor of Statistics and Director of the Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems at

Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...

. From 2016–2022, she was Director of the Kinder Institute Urban Data Platform, a data resource initiative for the

Greater Houston Greater Houston, designated by the Office of Management and Budget, United States Office of Management and Budget as Houston–Pasadena–The Woodlands, is the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fifth-most populous metropolitan statistical ...

area that includes the Texas Flood and COVID-19 registries. She is an Executive Team Member for Houston Wastewater Epidemiology, a

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the respiratory illness responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had the Novel coronavirus, provisional nam ...

wastewater monitoring initiative between Rice University, the Houston Health Department, Houston Public Works, and the City of Houston. In August 2022, Houston Wastewater Epidemiology was named a National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) Center of Excellence by the U.S.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the National public health institutes, national public health agency of the United States. It is a Federal agencies of the United States, United States federal agency under the United S ...

Career and Research

Ensor's statistical and computational methods for the development of modeling frameworks pinpoint, track and forecast issues across a wide variety of fields. Since the start of her academic career, a focus of her research has sought a deeper understanding of problems in energy, quantitative finance and risk management. In 2002, she collaborated with university and industry partners to establish the Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems (CoFES). She has since continued to serve as the center’s director and has developed numerous programs in graduate and undergraduate research and education. Ensor is widely known for her expertise in community analytics, which has grown through her career-long commitment to environmental and health-based research. Through collaborations with cross-disciplinary groups of educators, scientists, engineers, and city and public health professionals, she has quantitatively assessed air quality and human exposure to environmental contaminants. The work has also included the discovery of a correlation between

ozone Ozone () (or trioxygen) is an Inorganic compound, inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , break ...

and

heart attacks A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is retr ...

, and of geographic patterns in severe

asthma Asthma is a common long-term inflammatory disease of the airways of the lungs. It is characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and easily triggered bronchospasms. Symptoms include episodes of wh ...

attacks in schoolchildren. In May 2020, Ensor and collaborators at Rice University, the Houston Health Department, Houston Public Works, and the City of Houston, began conducting ongoing testing of the city’s wastewater treatment system for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

. The wastewater monitoring system has also been adapted to provide public health information on seasonal

influenza Influenza, commonly known as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These sympto ...

, the

respiratory syncytial virus Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), also called human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) and human orthopneumovirus, is a virus that causes infections of the respiratory tract. It is a negative-sense, single-stranded RNA virus. Its name is derive ...

(RSV),

mpox Mpox (, ; formerly known as monkeypox) is an infectious viral disease that can occur in humans and other animals. Symptoms include a rash that forms blisters and then crusts over, fever, and swollen lymph nodes. The illness is usually mild, ...

and other human

pathogens In biology, a pathogen (, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of"), in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ. The term ...

. As Director of the Kinder Institute Urban Data Platform from 2016–2022, Ensor investigated historical Houston flood event trends and

Hurricane Harvey Hurricane Harvey was a devastating tropical cyclone that made landfall in Texas and Louisiana in August 2017, causing catastrophic flooding and more than 100 deaths. It is tied with 2005's Hurricane Katrina as the costliest tropical cy ...

and on the health and housing impacts of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

and

COVID-19 vaccines A COVID19 vaccine is a vaccine intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 ( COVID19). Knowledge about the structure and func ...

. Additional studies have investigated mitigating risk and the affects climate change. Ensor advises on statistics and data science as a member of the Board of Directors for the

Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology ABET (pronounced A-bet), formerly known as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, Inc., is a non-governmental accreditation organization for post-secondary programs in engineering, engineering technology, computing, and appli ...

(ABET) – Computer Science Accreditation Board (CSAB). She serves on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) conducts research into the effects of the environment on human disease, as one of the 27 institutes and centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is located in the Rese ...

(NIEHS) and the Board of Trustees for the National Science Foundation (NSF)

Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

(IPAM). She was the 117th President 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 continuous ...

’s (ASA) Board of Directors (2021–2022) and Vice President of ASA’s Board of Directors from 2016–2018. She was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics (CATS) from 2015–2021. Ensor earned bachelor's and master's degrees in mathematics from

Arkansas State University Arkansas State University (A-State or ASU) is a public university, public research university in Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States. It is the flagship campus of the Arkansas State University System and the second-largest university in the st ...

in 1981 and 1982. She completed her Ph.D. in statistics in 1986 from

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...

; her dissertation, supervised by H. Joseph Newton, was ''Some Results in Autoregressive Modeling''. She has been on the Rice faculty since 1987.

References

External links

Rice University, Department of StatisticsRice University, Ensor websiteRice University, Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems (CoFES)Houston Wastewater Epidemiology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ensor, Katherine Bennett Living people American statisticians American women statisticians Arkansas State University alumni Texas A&M University alumni Rice University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellows of the American Statistical Association Year of birth missing (living people)