James CochranJames J. Cochran is professor of applied statistics and the Mike and Kathy Moroun Research Chair at the University of Alabama. Born in Dayton, Ohio, he earned his BS, MS and MBA degrees from Wright State University and his Ph.D. from the University o Cincinnati. He has been at the University of Alabama since 2014 and has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Universidad de Talca, the University of South Africa and Pole Universitaire Leonard de Vinci. Professor Cochran has published over 60 papers in the development and application of operations research and statistical methods. He has published his research in Management Science, The American Statistician, Communications in Statistics—Theory and Methods, Annals of Operations Research, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics, Statistics and Probability Letters and other professional Journals. Professor Cochran's research has been funded by the Department of Justice, National Science Foundation and other agencies. He was the 2008 recipient of the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of Operations Research Practice and the 2010 recipient of the Mu Sigma Rho Statistical Education Award. Professor Cochran was elected to the International Statistics Institute in 2005 and named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2011. He received the Founders Award in 2014 and the Karl E. Peace Award in 2015 from the American Statistical Association. In 2017, he received the American Statistical Association's Waller Distinguished Teaching Career Award and was named a Fellow of INFORMS; in 2018, he received the INFORMS President's Award; in 2024, he received the William G. Hunter Award from the American Society for Quality and in 2025, he was named a Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences. He has been recognized as a finalist for the Innovative Applications in Analytics Award three times. Read More Read Less