The Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems (CoFES) at Rice University announces Stephan R. Sain, Ph.D., is the recipient of the 2024 CoFES Prize in Computational Statistics.
Sain is the senior director of geospatial and data sciences at Jupiter Intelligence, a global climate risk analytics technology firm based in Silicon Valley. At Jupiter, Sain provides clients with data and analytics services to predict and manage risks arising from weather and climate change.
Sain was awarded the prize on April 22 during the eleventh Eubank Conference on Real World Markets: Real Estate Investment in a Changing Market.
“It was a pleasure to announce Steve as this year’s recipient for his leadership and pioneering work in statistics, data science, and climate risk analytics. It is also notable that this spring marks 30 years since the completion of his Ph.D.,” said David Scott, Rice’s Noah Harding Professor Emeritus and Sain’s doctoral advisor.
The CoFES Prize, which also includes a $1,500 monetary award, was established in 2013 through a grant by the Nancy M. and J. Thomas Eubank Research Excellence Fund in Computational Statistics.
Sain’s post-Rice journey has involved the rigorous analysis and understanding of data with many variables and cases as applied to environmental equity, exploring new parameter estimation strategies for magnetosphere and space weather models, and bringing cutting-edge statistics and machine learning tools to digital agriculture.
Sain has published more than 70 journal publications throughout his career. Before joining Jupiter, he worked as a faculty-in-residence scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder and was an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver.
Earlier in their career, Sain was an assistant professor at Southern Methodist University, where he conducted research on environmental justice, mixture modeling and outlier detection and taught various statistics courses. Before that, he was a scientist and section head of geophysical statistics at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
Steve is a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and serves on the steering committee for ASA’s newly formed Caucus of Industry Representatives. He is an affiliate faculty member of the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Colorado Boulder and serves on the department’s advisory board for the professional master's degree program in applied mathematics. Steve also volunteers on his town’s Advisory Committee for Environmental Sustainability.
Sain holds a B.A. in mathematical sciences and statistics and a Ph.D. in statistics from Rice.
Since its founding in 2002, CoFES has been dedicated to the advancement of quantitative finance and economic systems and their ultimate impact on society. Using and developing modern computational, statistical and mathematical techniques for modeling complex problems, the center strives to deliver world-class research, expand education and advance public knowledge.
The center’s flagship event, the Eubank Conference on Real World Markets, brings a broad array of subject experts to explore critical assumptions and issues in computational finance. Follow or visit the CoFES YouTube Channel for past colloquia and special event lectures.
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