Statistics Faculty

Anthony Becker

Associate Professor of Economics
statistics and econometrics

Anthony Becker has taught a wide variety of courses in statistics, economics, and women's studies since coming to St. Olaf in 1987. His current teaching areas include econometrics, statistical analysis, microeconomic theory, and antitrust and regulation. He has published articles in defense economics, environmental policy, and antitrust and is currently writing a book in sports economics with Victor Matheson (St. Olaf class of 1991). He also consults as an expert witness in economic damages and antitrust injury. Prof. Becker received his B.A. in economics with honors from the University of Maryland and both his Ph.D. and M.A. from Duke University. Outside of his academic duties, Prof. Becker designs web sites for local artists and frequently serves as a professional parliamentarian. Most of his free time is spent repairing the family's three +200,000 mile vehicles.


Richard Kleber
Professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science emeritus
probability and mathematical statistics

Founder of the Statistics program at St. Olaf College.


Christine Kohnen
Visiting Assistant Professor of Statistics
Bayesian statistics and synthetic data

Christine recieved her Ph.D in Statistics and Decision Sciences at Duke University (Durham, NC) and had been there since graduating from Saint Olaf College in 2000. While at Duke, she also received a MS in Statistics, taught several statistics courses, camped out for basketball tickets and spent time with the Cameron Crazies. When not thinking about data confidentiality and synthetic data methods, she enjoys both ballroom and latin dance, photography (the Sarah P. Duke gardens are wonderful in the spring), and traveling.


Julie Legler
Director of Statistics and Associate Professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
biostatistics and latent variable modeling

Julie joined the St. Olaf faculty in 2001 following eight years at the National Institutes of Health where she did research in the areas of quality-of-life, research synthesis, multilevel models and simulation modeling. She earned a BA and MS in Statistics at the University of Minnesota and her doctorate in biostatistics at Harvard. She has also taught at another unnamed ELCA college in the frozen north. Her family of three children and husband enjoy active pursuits (biking, skiing, hiking, traveling, etc.) and more sedate pursuits (reading, music, etc.) together when they are not participating in or watching local sporting events.


Matthew Richey
Professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
computational mathematics and software design

Matt is originally from Kentucky and received his B.A. from Kenyon College and his Ph.D. from Dartmouth. He came to St. Olaf in 1986 and has been here ever since. His areas of research are Applied Mathematics, Mathematical Computing, and Bayesian Computational Statistics. In addition, Matt has been designed and implemented software for industry and is a consultant to the college's efforts to redesign the student information system. He is married to Pearl Devenow, has two children (Marianna and Gabriel), two cats, and two dogs. In his spare time (the little that remains) Matt enjoys running, listening to music, and cooking. He is also involved in a life-long effort to correct the commonly held belief that the sacrifice bunt in baseball is a an effective strategic ploy. So far, he has failed.


Paul Roback
Associate Professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
Bayesian methods and regression modeling

Paul is an applied statistician, having attacked problems ranging from clinical trials in panic disorder to population models for bowhead whales to indicators of welfare recidivism to the effects of forest fragmentation on birds. He returns to The Hill after a long hiatus; after graduating from St. Olaf in 1989 with majors in mathematics and economics, Paul earned an M.S. in statistics from Iowa State, worked as a clinical statistician for Eli Lilly, earned a Ph.D. in statistics from Colorado State, and taught for several years at both Bucknell and Connecticut College. In addition to applied statistical consulting, Paul's research interests include Bayesian statistics, nonparametric methods, and statistical education. Paul and his wife Karen have three young children--Samantha, Timothy, and Sophie--who keep his office decorated with fine artwork. Outside of his office, Paul can often be found on some athletic court or field, playing basketball, tennis, soccer, and maybe even broomball. Or, he can befound putting his statistical knowledge to good use -- attempting to win the coveted Joe Boe Trophy in the Boe Fantasy Football League.


Martha Tibbetts Wallace
Professor of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science
mathematics education

A 1975 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of St. Olaf, Martha earned her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in mathematics education from the University of Minnesota. She spent several years teaching secondary school mathematics before she returned to her alma mater. Now she is in charge of the mathematics education program at St. Olaf, and in the summers teaches high school mathematics teachers. She is active in state and national mathematics education leadership programs. She and her husband, LuVerne, recently retired as an engineer at a local industry, spend their spare time running a crop farm, doing volunteer work for their church, and watching their grown children and their grandchildren play in orchestra and jazz concerts. Their daughters Jennifer and Alison and their husbands are all educators (three of the four are science graduates of St. Olaf). Her son Nate, who majored in political science St. Olaf, is in the Army.


Katie Ziegler-Graham
Visiting Professor of Statistics
biostatistics

Katie, a graduate of The College of Wooster, earned her Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Katie's public health research interests include injury prevention, limb loss, and most recently Alzheimer's disease. In addition to public health research she is interested in using likelihood methodology to measure the strength of statistical evidence in data. In her spare time time Katie enjoys reading, knitting, quilting, walking and gardening. Most of all she and her husband Tom enjoy spending time with their daughter Lucy.