Ash Abebe has been selected to serve as interim dean of the Graduate School at Auburn University in Alabama. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s most recent data, Auburn enrolls over 6,000 graduate students.
“It is a privilege to serve Auburn University during such a pivotal time for graduate education,” Abebe said. “I’m excited to build on the Graduate School’s strong momentum and to further the academic and scholarly work that connects our students and faculty across disciplines. This is both a challenge and an opportunity to build the data scaffolding needed to identify synergies and gaps so Auburn’s graduate education can grow in impact and reach.”
Dr. Abebe has been a faculty member at Auburn for over two decades. He first came to the university in 2002 as an assistant professor in the department of mathematics. Currently, he holds the title of William P. Molette Professor of Mathematics. For the past five years, he has served as chair of his department. During this time, he has hired over 20 faculty members, expanded the department’s research portfolio to over $2 million, and created the first doctoral program in statistics and data science in the state of Alabama.
As a mathematician, Dr. Abebe focuses his research and teaching on nonparametric statistics, discriminant analysis, order restricted and simultaneous interference, statistical computation, and functional analysis. He also currently serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of African Development.
Dr. Abebe earned his bachelor’s degree from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and his Ph.D. from Western Michigan University. Before joining the Auburn faculty, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the department of statistics at Stanford University.
