Kimberly Sellers facts for kids

Kimberly Flagg Sellers is an American expert in statistics. She helps us understand information using numbers.

Since 2023, she has been the head of the statistics department at North Carolina State University. This is a big deal because she is the first Black woman to lead a science department there! Before this, Dr. Sellers was a professor at Georgetown University. She also worked as a researcher for the United States Census Bureau.

Dr. Sellers is a leader in her field. She used to be in charge of the Committee on Women in Statistics. This group is part of the American Statistical Association. She is also a special member, called a Fellow, of this association. Plus, she is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.

She is known for her work with count data. This is about counting how many times something happens. She is a top expert on a special way to count data called the Conway–Maxwell–Poisson distribution. She has also used statistics in medicine and to analyze images for studying proteins.

Early Life and Education

Kimberly Sellers is African-American. She was born in Washington, DC. Both of her parents had advanced degrees. Her father, Thomas Flagg, was a pianist. He became a dean at Howard University.

From a young age, Kimberly wanted to earn a doctorate degree in math. She would read a magazine called Black Issues in Higher Education. With her father, she would look up how many African-Americans had earned a Ph.D. in math.

College Years

Kimberly went to the University of Maryland, College Park. She was a Benjamin Banneker scholar there. Raymond L. Johnson was one of her mentors. She earned two degrees in math from Maryland. She got her bachelor's degree in 1994 and her master's degree in 1998.

While studying for her master's, she became interested in statistics. She took a class from Piotr Mikulski. Her master's project was about how to calculate times in Markov chains.

Doctoral Studies

In 2001, she earned her Ph.D. in statistics. She studied at George Washington University. She was one of the first students to get support from the Gates Millennium Scholars Program. Her main advisor for her Ph.D. was Nozer D. Singpurwalla.

Career Highlights

After finishing her Ph.D., Dr. Sellers worked at Carnegie Mellon University. This was from 2001 to 2004. She was a visiting professor and had a scholarship from the National Science Foundation. She worked with important scientists like Bill Eddy and Stephen Fienberg.

In 2004, she became a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She taught about biostatistics and epidemiology. These fields use statistics to study health and diseases.

In 2006, she moved to Georgetown University. At that time, Georgetown was just starting a statistics program. In 2015, she also began working with the Census Bureau.

Achievements and Recognition

Dr. Sellers has received important honors for her work.

• In 2018, she became an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.
• In 2021, she was named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. This is a high honor for statisticians.