Robert Kass

Last updated
Robert E. Kass
Born (1952-09-07) September 7, 1952 (age 71)
Boston, Massachusetts, USA
NationalityAmerican
Alma mater University of Chicago (PhD)
Antioch College (BA)
Known for Computational Neuroscience, Bayesian Statistics
Awards R. A. Fisher Lectureship, Elected to the National Academy of Sciences
Scientific career
Fields Statistics
Institutions Carnegie Mellon University
Thesis  (1980)
Doctoral advisor Stephen Stigler
Website www.stat.cmu.edu/~kass/

Robert E. Kass is the Maurice Falk University Professor of Statistics and Computational Neuroscience in the Department of Statistics and Data Science, the Machine Learning Department, and the Neuroscience Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Contents

Early life and education

Born in Boston, Massachusetts (1952), Kass earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Antioch College, and a PhD degree in Statistics from the University of Chicago in 1980, where his advisor was Stephen Stigler. Kass is the son of the late Harvard medical researcher Edward H. Kass [1] and stepson of the late Amalie M. Kass. His sister is the bioethicist Nancy Kass.

Research and publications

Kass's early research was on differential geometry in statistics, [2] which formed the basis for his book Geometrical Foundations of Asymptotic Inference [3] (with Paul Vos), and on Bayesian methods. Since 2000 his research has focused on statistical methods in neuroscience.

Kass's best-known work includes a comprehensive re-evaluation of Bayesian hypothesis testing and model selection, [4] [5] and the selection of prior distributions, [6] the relationship of Bayes and Empirical Bayes methods, [7] Bayesian asymptotics, [8] [9] the application of point process statistical models to neural spiking data, [10] [11] the challenges of multiple spike train analysis, [12] [13] the state-space approach to brain-computer interface, [14] and the brain's apparent ability to solve the credit assignment problem during brain-controlled robotic movement. [15] Kass's book Analysis of Neural Data [16] (with Emery Brown and Uri Eden) was published in 2014. Kass has also written on statistics education and the use of statistics, including the articles, "What is Statistics?", [17] "Statistical Inference: The Big Picture," [18] and "Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice". [19]

Professional and administrative activities

Kass has served Chair of the Section for Bayesian Statistical Science of the American Statistical Association, Chair of the Statistics Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, founding Editor-in-Chief of Bayesian Analysis (journal), and Executive Editor (editor-in-chief) of the international review journal Statistical Science. At Carnegie Mellon University he was Department Head of Statistics from 1995 to 2004 and Interim Co-director of the joint CMU–University of Pittsburgh Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition 2015–2018. [20] [21]

Honors

Kass is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences. [22] For his work on statistical modeling of neural synchrony, [23] in 2013 he received the Outstanding Statistical Application Award from the American Statistical Association, and in 2017 he received the R.A. Fisher Award and Lectureship, now known as the COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship, from the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies.

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References

  1. ↑ "Edward H. Kass, M.D., Eulogy".
  2. ↑ Kass, Robert E. (1989). "The Geometry of Asymptotic Inference (with discussion)". Statistical Science. 4 (3): 188–234. doi: 10.1214/SS/1177012480 . JSTOR   2245626. S2CID   119728605.
  3. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Vos, Paul (1997-03-07). Geometrical Foundations of Asymptotic Inference. doi:10.1002/9781118165980. ISBN   9780471826682.
  4. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Raftery, Adrian (2012-02-27). "Bayes Factors". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 90 (430): 773–795. doi:10.1080/01621459.1995.10476572.
  5. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Wasserman, Larry A. (1995). "A Reference Bayesian Test for Nested Hypotheses and its Relationship to the Schwarz Criterion". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 90 (431): 928–934. doi:10.1080/01621459.1995.10476592. S2CID   120491167 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
  6. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Wasserman, Larry A. (1996). "The Selection of Prior Distributions by Formal Rules". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 91 (435): 1343–1370. doi:10.1080/01621459.1996.10477003. S2CID   53645083 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
  7. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Steffey, Duane (2012-03-12). "Approximate Bayesian Inference in Conditionally Independent Hierarchical Models (Parametric Empirical Bayes Models)". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 84 (407): 717–726. doi:10.1080/01621459.1989.10478825.
  8. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Tierney, Richard L. (1989). "Fully Exponential Laplace Approximations to Expectations and Variances of Nonpositive Functions". Journal of the American Statistical Association. 84 (407): 710–716. doi:10.1080/01621459.1989.10478824. S2CID   16075665 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
  9. ↑ Kass, Robert E., Tierney, Richard L. and Kadane, Joseph B. (1990) The validity of posterior expansions based on Laplace's method, Essays in Honor of George Bernard, eds. S. Geisser, J.S. Hodges, S.J. Press, and A. Zellner, Amsterdam: North Holland, 473-488.
  10. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Ventura, Valerie (2001). "A spike-train probability model, Neural Computation". Neural Computation. 13 (8): 1713–1720. doi:10.1162/08997660152469314. PMID   11506667. S2CID   1840562 – via MIT Press Direct.
  11. ↑ DiMatteo, Illaria; Genovese, Christopher R.; Kass, Robert E. (2001-12-01). "Bayesian curve‐fitting with free‐knot splines". Biometrika. 88 (4): 1055–1071. doi:10.1093/biomet/88.4.1055.
  12. ↑ Brown, Emery N.; Mitra, Partha P.; Kass, Robert E. (2004-04-27). "Multiple neural spike train data analysis: state-of-the-art and future challenges". Nature Neuroscience. 7 (4): 456–461. doi:10.1038/nn1228. PMID   15114358. S2CID   562815.
  13. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Ventura, Valerie; Brown, Emery N. (2005-07-01). "Statistical Issues in the Analysis of Neuronal Data". Journal of Neurophysiology. 94 (1): 8–25. doi:10.1152/jn.00648.2004. PMID   15985692.
  14. ↑ Brockwell, Anthony E.; Rojas, A.L.; Kass, Robert E. (2004-04-01). "Recursive Bayesian Decoding of Motor Cortical Signals by Particle Filtering". Journal of Neurophysiology. 91 (4): 1899–1907. doi:10.1152/jn.00438.2003. PMID   15010499. S2CID   15092944.
  15. ↑ Jarosiewicz, Beata; Chase, Steven M.; Farser, George W.; Velliste, Meel; Kass, Robert E.; Schwartz, Andrew B. (2008-12-01). "Functional network reorganization during learning in a brain-computer interface paradigm". PNAS. 105 (49): 19486–19491. Bibcode:2008PNAS..10519486J. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0808113105 . PMC   2614787 . PMID   19047633.
  16. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Brown, Emery N.; Eden, Uri (2014). Analysis of Neural Data. Springer Series in Statistics. Wiley. doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-9602-1. ISBN   978-1-4614-9602-1.
  17. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Brown, Emery N. (2008-09-01). "What Is Statistics?". The American Statistician. 63 (2): 105–110. doi:10.1198/tast.2009.0019. S2CID   120522019.
  18. ↑ Kass, Robert E. (2011-06-11). "Statistical Inference: The Big Picture". Statistical Science. 26 (1): 1–9. doi:10.1214/10-STS337. PMC   3153074 . PMID   21841892.
  19. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Caffo, Brian S.; Davidian, Marie; Meng, Xiao-Li; Reid, Nancy (2016-06-06). "Ten Simple Rules for Effective Statistical Practice". PLOS Comput Biol. 12 (6): e1004961. Bibcode:2016PLSCB..12E4961K. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004961 . PMC   4900655 . PMID   27281180.
  20. ↑ University, Carnegie Mellon. "Robert Kass - Statistics & Data Science - Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2023-05-30.
  21. ↑ "Kass Elected to National Academy of Sciences – CNBC" . Retrieved 2023-05-30.
  22. ↑ Simmons, Abby (2023-05-09). "Kass Elected to National Academy of Sciences - News - Carnegie Mellon University". www.cmu.edu. Retrieved 2023-05-30.
  23. ↑ Kass, Robert E.; Kelly, Ryan C.; Loh, Wei-Liem (2011-07-13). "Assessment of synchrony in multiple neural spike trains using loglinear point process models". The Annals of Applied Statistics. 5 (2B): 1262–1292. arXiv: 1107.5872 . Bibcode:2011arXiv1107.5872K. doi:10.1214/10-AOAS429. PMC   3152213 . PMID   21837263.
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