In 1977, Steve Stehman (statistics, ‘82) was a junior at Penn State University studying biology. An independent study course had him knee deep in the streams of Centre County, Pennsylvania, collecting diatoms — tiny, unicellular photosynthesizing algae.
As he began to analyze his mountain of data, he quickly realized he was in over his head. This led him to enroll in a few statistics courses, where he discovered the powerful mutualistic relationship between biology and statistics.
Those tiny microscopic organisms changed the course of his life and put him on a path to the Department of Statistics at Oregon State, a place he believes stays one step ahead of the scientific trends and prepares students for every career outcome.
Today, as a Distinguished Teaching Professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Stehman honors his roots by giving back to Oregon State. His contributions recognize the invaluable education he received and pay tribute to one very special faculty member.
OSU connections shaped a path to success
Oregon State was one of a few schools on a short list Stehman created for master’s degree options. Faculty at Penn State recommended OSU as a place where statistics and the environment were already coming together, something that wasn’t true at most universities.
“It has been a strength of the department for the last 50 or so years and I’m biased in my opinion, but I think they’re still one of the top places for combining the environment and statistics,” he said. “They have been very successful in being innovative and right at the front of changes that have occurred over the last few decades.”
A scholarship offer that covered his first year of tuition sealed the deal and he packed his bags to move across the country.
Once he arrived at Oregon State, he quickly found a sense of community, thanks to W. Scott Overton, a faculty member with a joint appointment with the forestry college. Overton’s academic career spanned a range of topics including wildlife, forestry, statistics, ecology, conservation and environmental issues. He was a pioneer in the application of hierarchy theory to ecosystem theory and modeling. His statistical specialty was sampling theory and design, with applications to environmental issues and monitoring programs.
Overton served as Stehman’s master’s advisor and along with his wife Joanne, he helped numerous graduate students feel at home.
“They had students out to their house for dinners and long discussions about statistics or life,” Stehman said. “That family relationship they invited people into, for me, was very helpful.”
When Stehman left Corvallis in 1983 to pursue a Ph.D. in Biometry at Cornell University, Overton still played a role in his education, receiving special permission to serve as his dissertation advisor.
“I get to learn about research and work with people who are addressing what I think are important problems.”
At the time, Overton was working closely with the Environmental Protection Agency, making major contributions to several aspects of the EPA’s National Surface Water Surveys conducted during the 1980’s and to the EPA’s Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program (EMAP). Stehman worked with Overton on some of his research questions that had a direct environmental impact.
“I have always liked that I can ask researchers a lot of questions and learn about all these different things in the environment that otherwise I wouldn’t know about. You’re talking directly to an expert about their work, and they allow dumb questions because they recognize I don’t understand what they are doing,” Stehman said. “I get to learn about research and work with people who are addressing what I think are important problems.”
In 1989 he accepted a teaching position at SUNY in the Department of Sustainable Resource Management. Teaching wasn’t on his radar until his time at Oregon State. One of his degree responsibilities was spending one quarter as a teaching assistant.
“I put that off until my very last quarter because I wasn’t planning on being a teacher, but I had such a good experience that it was the spark for me to change directions and I decided it was something I was really interested in,” he said.
Stehman teaches sampling techniques, map accuracy assessment and experiment design and analysis of variance. These classes align with his passion for analyzing land cover mapping with satellite data. Although this type of work requires a narrow area of statistics, Stehman likes how it addresses problems with huge impact such as deforestation or changes in surface water availability.
“I’ve had a very narrow career specialized in that area, but these were the problems I wanted to work on. It’s been a lucky but perfect match of my interests and the work people are doing,” he said.
Once again, he owes it all to Overton. In 1989, before he left to teach back east, Stehman took a consulting job that Overton was offered but didn’t have time for. He spent the first three weeks of January in Fairbanks, Alaska, working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to assess the accuracy of vegetation maps derived from satellite imagery.
“To validate maps you select a small set of areas as a sample and then do very intensive work to try and see what exactly is there as close to the truth and then compare it to the map. There has been a lot of work over the years to try and do it more efficiently and accurately,” Stehman said.
In 2016, Stehman was named the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry exemplary researcher for his outstanding research career and unsurpassed knowledge in his field of study.
Attending Oregon State helped Stehman narrow his field of study and develop a love of teaching, two things that would later define his entire career.
“It really did change things for me and put me on a career path I don’t think I ever would have started,” he said.
