Webster West  

Shortly after completing his Ph.D. in Statistics at Rice University in 1994, Webster West began developing Internet resources for statistical education. In the mid 1990s, he started to construct interactive web-based java applets that help students understand difficult statistical concepts. To date, he has developed more than 50 such applets many of which now accompany introductory statistics textbooks. In the same vein, he began to develop a complete online data analysis package in 1997. With support from the National Science Foundation, his StatCrunch package has now blossomed into one of the most used statistical resources on the Web. In 2005, he received the Causeweb Resource of the Year Award and the Merlot Classics Award for the StatCrunch project. He has also written the DoStat course management system which is used as a platform to offer distance courses at Texas A&M.

Outside of software development, Dr. West has numerous research interests most of which (not surprisingly) involve a fair amount of statistical computing. He has published extensively in the fields of changepoint analysis and toxicological risk assessment.

A devoted father, Dr. West enjoys spending time with his family, especially his two young daughters (ages 4 and 1). He serves as a jungle gym, fashion expert and source of laughter. When he is not playing these roles, he likes to travel, watch movies and stay current on trends in consumer electronics. He is probably in line for an iPhone as you read this.  UPDATE:  He has an iPhone.