Georgetown College. Georgetown University.

By Katherine Morrissey

The Georgetown Mathematics Department is going to get a little bit larger this fall. With its new master’s program starting its second year, the department has been working hard to expand its statistics expertise and bring on new faculty. This process began with the hiring of Dr. Kimberly Sellers in the fall of 2006, and this year Dr. Ali Arab and Dr. Mahlet Tadesse are coming on board.

"The general reason for these hires was to support the graduate program," explains Dr. James Sandefur, chair of the department. "As an additional benefit, it allows us to have statisticians teach our existing undergraduate statistics courses, which strengthens those courses. We will be looking into both improving the content of those courses and adding some additional undergraduate courses for our students."

Both Dr. Arab and Dr. Tadesse have rich backgrounds in applied mathematics. Dr. Arab joins Georgetown after completing his doctorate in Statistics at the University of Missouri. Specializing in spatio-temporal models, spatial statistics, and Hierarchical Bayesian modeling with a focus on environmental and ecological studies, Dr. Arab spent the last two years working with the U.S. Geological Survey, developing statistical models to assist biologists looking at the fish population within the Missouri River. Dr. Tadesse spent the past three years working and teaching at the University of Pennsylvania and received her doctorate in Biostatistics from Harvard University. Her research focuses on developing statistical and computational tools to analyze large-scale genomic data.

Dr. Sellers is particularly excited about the common threads between each of their research interests and what it means for the department.

“We are all complementary to each other in our research interests and responsibilities,” she explains. “Even as a small group, we look to make a significant impact in our department, the university, and beyond.”

The Mathematics Department launched their new master’s program last year. Interest has been very high and the new faculty members are part of department efforts to expand teaching capacity and respond to the general excitement in the program.

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