Dr. Montserrat Fuentes – Goodnight Distinguished Professor

Dr. Montserrat Fuentes has been named the first Goodnight Distinguished Professor in Statistics at NC State.

Fuentes’ internationally recognized research seeks to better understand how pollution affects human health, as well as find ways to improve tools used to forecast extreme weather events. She is the principal investigator and director of the Research Network for Statistical Methods for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, an initiative funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

Fuentes has authored more than 80 scientific publications and served as principal investigator on more than 20 research grants. She has also been a senior leader of the NSF ADVANCE program at NC State that works to increase the representation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.

Her many awards and honors include being named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and receiving the Scientific and Technological Achievement Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). She is the editor of the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics and serves on the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics of the National Academies and the Science Advisory Board of the EPA. Fuentes joined NC State’s Department of Statistics in 2003 and was named department head in 2011.

Fuentes’ professorship was made possible thanks to the generosity of NC State alumnus Dr. James Goodnight. Goodnight is CEO and a co-founder of SAS, the world’s largest privately held software company. SAS emerged from NC State’s Department of Statistics when Goodnight was on its faculty in the 1970s. Goodnight and his wife, Ann, are longtime supporters of both the College of Sciences and NC State, establishing several professorships and the Goodnight Scholars Program.