The NSF offers this prestigious award as part of the Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.
“Nicoleta is a promising and innovative researcher in the emerging and important area of research into the use of statistical modeling techniques in the service sector” states Jeff Wu, ISyE professor and Coca Chair in Engineering Statistics. “In particular, she is looking into the development of novel spatio-temporal modeling of service distribution equity with applications to financial and healthcare industries. ISyE is proud of having such talented young researchers among its ranks. “
Professor Serban is the fifth NSF CAREER Award winner in the statistics/quality group at the Stewart School of ISyE in the last four years. She joins the ranks of professors Roshan Vengazhiyil, Nagi Gebraeel; and Ming Yuan, who received the award in 2006, 2007 and 2009, respectively, and Professor Yajun Mei, who also received the award this year.
Professor Serban received her B.S. in Mathematics and an M.S. in Theoretical Statistics and Stochastic Processes from the University of Bucharest. She went on to earn her Ph.D. in Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University. Before joining Georgia Tech, Professor Serban's research focused on nonparametric statistical methods motivated by recent applications from proteomics and genomics. Her current research focuses on multiple functional estimation and clustering with applications to industrial performance, service site location, socio-economics and NMR biomolecular studies.
In addition to the NSF CARRER Award, Professor Serban has also received the following honors and awards: