Oregon State University has named Sastry Pantula, a statistics professor at North Carolina State University who since 2010 has served as director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Mathematical Sciences, as dean of OSU’s College of Science. Pantula, who will begin his new duties on August 30, succeeds interim dean Vince Remcho. A fellow of the American Statistical Association, he served as president of the organization in 2010. He also is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
“Sastry Pantula has a distinguished career during which he consistently has demonstrated his ability to help develop outstanding opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students and collaborative research, as well as build strong and diverse faculty,” said Sabah Randhawa, OSU provost and executive vice president.
The College of Science, and Oregon State University, will benefit from his excellent organizational and leadership skills.
Pantula has been on the North Carolina State faculty since 1982. He headed the statistics department there for eight years, and also directed the university’s Institute of Statistics. During his tenure, he worked with his dean and the college foundation to create three $1 million endowments for distinguished professors. Since 1999, working with colleagues and alumni, he also has secured more than $7 million in funding from the National Science Foundation and other agencies and industries to promote graduate student training and mentorship. His own research focuses on time series analysis and econometric modeling, with a broad range of applications. He has worked with the National Science Foundation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Bureau of Census on projects ranging from population estimates to detecting trends in global temperature.
As dean of OSU’s College of Science, Pantula will provide leadership for some of OSU’s most recognized disciplines, including nationally noted programs in physics, ecosystem informatics, water resources, environmental health science and more. The college is a major reason that OSU has gained the top ranking in the United States for conservation biology in recent years, and two other departments have been ranked in the top 10 by the Chronicle of Higher Education – zoology and science education. Diversity of sciences in the college, including mathematical and statistical sciences, provide innovative opportunities for fundamental and multidisciplinary research collaborations across the campus and around the globe.
Pantula has bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata, India, and a Ph.D. in statistics from Iowa State University.
