Toryn Schafer

Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, Texas A&M University

I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics and 2024 ConocoPhillips Data Science Faculty Fellow at Texas A&M University. Previously, I was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Statistics and Data Science at Cornell University working with Dr. David Matteson. At Cornell, I coordinated research activities associated with the NSF funded PRISM Institute for Trans-domain Systemic Risk. I finished my PhD in 2020 at the University of Missouri advised by Dr. Christopher Wikle. My quantitative research interests span many topics, but with an underlying commonality that includes spatio-temporal modeling, Bayesian statistics, and alternative learning frameworks such as machine learning, deep learning, and reinforcement learning. I am highly motivated by scientific hypotheses with an emphasis on ecological and environmental applications.

Prospective students: Students with an interest in ecological data science and/or spatiotemporal Bayesian statistics are encouraged to apply to the PhD program in Statistics.

Interests

Spatio-temporal statistics · Reinforcement learning · Bayesian statistics · Machine learning · Ecology · Energy · Sports

Education

Ph.D. in Statistics, University of Missouri, 2020

M.A. in Statistics, University of Missouri, 2018

B.S. in Statistics & Wildlife Biology, Colorado State University, 2014