Montserrat Fuentes, a professor in the department of statistical sciences and operations research and dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, was selected as the winner of the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Medal from the section on Statistics and the Environment of the American Statistical Association.
The American Statistical Association stated that Dr. Fuentes is being honored for “deep contributions to statistical methodology, including non-stationary covariance function models, models for spatial extremes, calibration of numerical models, and computational approaches for large spatial data sets; for substantial contributions to environmental health and air pollution epidemiology; for leadership roles and mentoring of junior scientists; and for service to the profession.”
Dr. Fuentes joined the faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University in July 2016. Previously, she was the James M. Goodnight Distinguished Professor of Statistics at North Carolina State University. She taught at North Carolina State University of 18 years.
Professor Fuentes earned bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and music (piano) from the University of Valladolid in Spain. She holds a Ph.D. in statistics from the University of Chicago.