Kathy Ensor, the Noah G. Harding Professor of Statistics, is the 2020 recipient of the Presidential Mentoring Award, given annually to Rice faculty members who demonstrate a commitment to mentoring graduate or undergraduate students.
The award is given by the university president's office and a selection committee led by Enrique Barrera, professor of mechanical engineering. Ensor joined the Rice faculty in 1987 and is director of the Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems and the Urban Data Platform of the Kinder Institute, both at Rice.
She served as chair of the Department of Statistics from 1999 through 2013. Ensor earned her Ph.D. in statistics from Texas A&M University in 1986. The focus of her research is developing methods in time series and spatial processes for modern data science problems. Her research has applications in financial modeling, risk management, energy and the environment.
Ensor is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and American Association for the Advancement of Science. She served as vice president of the ASA from 2016 to 2018 and is a member of the National Academies Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics and the NSF Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics Board of Directors.