Sastry Pantula

ASA President Sastry Pantula was recently appointed Division Director for Mathematical Sciences in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Pantula will join NSF in September from North Carolina State University (NCSU), where he has been a professor and director of graduate programs in the department of statistics since 1994 and department head since 2002. While at NCSU, Pantula has worked with a number of companies—including Becton Dickinson, GlaxoSmithKline, Eli Lilly and Company, SAS Institute, and Merck—to increase the number of graduate industrial traineeships and develop graduate fellowships. During a scholarly leave in 1990–1991, he worked at SEMATECH, where he developed and taught various courses in quality control and experimental design and collaborated with engineers from semiconductor industries in the United States and supplier companies in Mexico.

Under Pantula’s leadership, the department of statistics at NCSU received the Departmental Teaching and Learning Excellence Award in 2004–2005. Pantula also became a member of the NCSU Academy of Outstanding Teachers and received an outstanding teacher award, the D.D. Mason Faculty Award in 2001, and SAA-PAMS Department Head Award in 2005 and 2008.

Pantula earned his doctoral degree in 1982 from Iowa State University, while both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees are in statistics from the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, India. His areas of research include time series analysis and linear and nonlinear models. In addition to a number of publications in various journals, he coauthored the textbook Applied Regression Analysis: A Research Tool.

Pantula was elected an ASA Fellow in 2002 for contributions to research in time series analysis; exemplary service in graduate education as a teacher, researcher, mentor, and recruiter of graduate students and industrial partners; and contributions to the profession. He also received the Young Statistician Award from the International Indian Statistical Association that year.

“I look forward to working with Dr. Pantula in this important leadership role for mathematical sciences,” said H. Edward Seidel, acting assistant director for mathematical sciences in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at NSF.