Alemtsehai A. Turasie

Contact Department of Mathematics Tel: +1 201 200 3304 Information New Jersey City University Skype: alemtsehai1 2039 John Fitzgerald Kennedy Blvd, Jersey City, NJ 07305 E-mail: [email protected] USA OR [email protected]

Personal • Born on August 12, 1981 • Male • Ethiopian • Married

Research Statistical Modelling of Weather and Climate, Time series Econometrics, Applied linear modeling, Interests Quantitative researches in Social Sciences, Statistical methods for disease modelling.

Current I am working as Assistant professor of Statistics at New Jersey City University, USA. Duties include position teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses, researches, advising students at all levels and involving in administrative/committee works.

Tertiary University of Exeter, Exeter, UK Education PhD, Statistical modelling of climatic trends, 2012. • Dissertation Topic: “Cointegration modelling of climatic time series” • Supervisors: Prof. David Stephenson, Prof. James Davidson and Dr. Tim Jupp • My thesis can be accessed from http://hdl.handle.net/10036/4090

Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia MSc, Applied Statistics, 2006 • Dissertation Topic: “Association between HIV infection and some selected factors; and Mod- elling Chance of Contracting HIV” • Supervisor: Prof. Eshetu Wencheko

Addis Ababa University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia BSc, Statistics (minoring Mathematics and Economics), 2003

Teaching & New Jersey City University (NJCU), USA Research Assistant Professor September, 2018 - Present Experiences Duties include teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses, supervising postgraduate research works, carrying out own researches and involving in administrative/committee duties. Courses taught at NJCU so far: • Mathematical Statistics I - a core course for graduating class Math major students. • Statistics I - a ﬁrst year course for students from diﬀerent departments.

University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), South Africa Lecturer June, 2014 -July, 2018 Duties include teaching undergraduate and postgraduate courses, supervising postgraduate research works, carrying out own researches and involving in administrative duties. Courses taught at Wits:

1 • Applied Statistical Modelling - a full-year course for graduating class Statistics majors. It comprises Regression Analysis and Time Series Analysis (one semester) and Generalized Linear Models (second semester). • Applied/Advanced Sampling - a postgraduate course (Applied Sampling for honours level and Advanced Sampling for masters level).

Hawassa University, Ethiopia Assistant Professor January, 2013 - April, 2013

Duties include teaching postgraduates, supervising research works of postgraduate students, carrying out own researches and involving in administrative duties.

National Institute for Space Researches - INPE, Centre for Weather Forecasting & Climate Studies - CPTEC, Brazil Postdoctoral Research Fellow May, 2013 - May, 2014

Worked under a European project called SPECS (Seasonal to decadal climate Prediction for the improvement of European Climate Services) at its South American member institute in Brazil, CPTEC/INPE. The main work I was involved in was Empirical Forecast of Climate at Seasonal time scales, and Statistical Calibration & Combination of diﬀerent forecasts to get improved and reliable results.

University of Exeter, UK Teaching Assistant October, 2009 - December, 2012 Demonstrations, tutorials, marking courseworks and covering lectures (in absence of course coordinator(s)) of diﬀerent undergraduate level modules in Statistics and Probability. Courses assisted: • Statistics - a ﬁrst year course mainly on descriptive Statistics, Estimation, Hypothesis testing and Probability distributions. • Probability and Discrete Mathematics - a second year course on probability theory • Statistical Modeling - a second year course mainly on Regression Analysis and model diag- nostics.

Hawassa University, Ethiopia Lecturer September, 2006 - September, 2009 Duties include: Teaching diﬀerent statistical courses at undergraduate level and assessing students in the respective course as a course leader. Courses taught: • Econometrics - a third year (graduating class) course mainly on Regression Analysis and diag- nosis • Operations Research - a third year (graduating class) course on Optimization • Statistical Methods - a ﬁrst year course (for Stats majors) on descriptive stats, inferential stats and sampling methods. • Introduction to Probability Theory - a second year course on probability distributions and their properties.

Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

Part-time lecturer∗ September, 2005 - June, 2006 Duties include: Teaching introductory statistical courses and assessing students in the respective course. Course taught: • Statistical Methods - a ﬁrst year course (for Stats majors) on descriptive stats, inferential stats and sampling methods.

2 Alpha University College, Ethiopia

Part-time lecturer∗ September, 2005 - January, 2006 Duties include: Teaching introductory statistical courses and assessing students in the respective course. Course taught: • Introductory Statistics - a service course for students doing their degrees in Management, Accounting, Economics and other business areas.

Addis Ababa College of Commerce , Ethiopia

Part-time lecturer∗ February, 2006 - June, 2006 Duties include: Teaching introductory statistical courses and assessing students in the respective course. Course taught: • Introductory Statistics - a service course for students doing their degrees in Commerce

∗ The part-time teachings were while doing my MSc at Addis Ababa University on full-time basis.

Hawassa University, Ethiopia

Graduate Assistant August, 2003 - August, 2004 Duties include: Teaching Introductory Statistical courses, Tutoring undergraduate students and leading statistical computer lab exercises. Courses taught/tutored: • Introductory Statistics (taught) - a ﬁrst year service course designed for Science students • Statistical Inference (tutorials) - a third year course

Administrative University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa works Course Coordinator - Mathematical Statistics III January, 2016 - July, 2018 Coordinating a third year course called Mathematical Statistics III, which comprises several modules such as Applied Statistical Modeling (Regression Analysis, Time Series Analysis, Generalized Linear Models), Stochastic Processes, Risk Theory and Non-Parametric Statistics.

Hawassa University, Ethiopia

Head, Department of Statistics September, 2006 - August, 2007

Associate Registrar January, 2009 - September, 2009

These two administrative responsibilities at Hawassa university were never easy (and not common) at that very early stage of my career. But by the recommendation of the faculty of Science, Hawassa University had faith in and assigned me at these positions. Despite being ﬁrst-timer to such chal- lenges, the feedbacks I got indicated that I did the jobs eﬀectively until I resigned from both positions for other roles.

Extracurricular New Jersey City University, Mathematics Department, USA activities Member of the Curriculum Committee and Basic Skills Committee . September, 2018 - Present The curriculum committee works on issues related to undergraduate and postgraduate curriculum of the department while the Basic Skills Committee works on how to assist students with basic Mathematical and Statistical skills before they go into formal courses.

3 University of the Witwatersrand, School of Statistics & Actuarial Science, South Africa

Member of the Curriculum Committee. June, 2016 - July, 2018 This committee was responsible for modifying existing courses (when there is a need) and evaluat- ing/approving newly designed courses and the curriculum of the school at large.

Mathematical Statistics Postgraduate Committee member July, 2014 - present This committee was responsible for setting admission criteria for, and recruiting postgraduate students in Statistics.

Hawassa University, Ethiopia

Member of the Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) team. March, 2008 - December, 2008 This team redesigned the academic, research and community service processes of the university in a resource eﬃcient and customer satisfying way.

Awards Received academic awards titled “ best Statistics teacher” from Hawassa University in two succes- sive academic years, 2006/7 and 2007/8. These awards were based on students’ evaluations and recommendations.

Scholarships Climate change and sustainable futures graduate research project: Academic Partnership between University of Exeter and the UK Met Oﬃce. This was a very competitive scholarship with several applicants from around the world for just one position which I won.

Research/travel • Faculty of Science research start-up grant for young academics, University of the Witwatersrand, Grants South Africa (2015, 2016, and 2017). • DST-NRF Center of Excellence in Mathematical & Statistical Sciences, South Africa (2017) • DST-NRF Center of Excellence in Mathematical & Statistical Sciences, South Africa (2016) • SASA/NRF funding (2016). • (Science) Faculty Research Committee (FRC) travel grant, University of the Witwatersrand , South Africa (2015) • DST-NRF Center of Excellence in Mathematical & Statistical Sciences, South Africa (2015) • SPECS project travel grant, CPTEC - INPE, Brazil (2013) • College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences travel grant, University of Exeter, UK (2012). • Exeter Climate Systems travel grant, University of Exeter, UK (2010).

Conference 2017 - CliMathNet Conference 2017, University of Reading, UK - Presentation Attendance & Presentations 2016 - American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2016, San Francisco, USA - Presentation

2015 - American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting 2015, San Francisco, USA - Presentation

2013 - Second General Assembly of SPECS project, KNMI, the Netherlands - Presentation

2013 - JPI-Climate workshop, KNMI, the Netherlands: Attendance and taking part in discussions on moving towards reliable seasonal/decadal climate predictions & researching climate service de- velopment and deployment.

2012 - European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2012, Vienna, Austria - Presentation

2011 - Royal Meteorological Society Conference 2011, Exeter, UK - Presentation

4 2010 - IGBP-AIMES/QUEST Open Science Conference, 2010, Edinburgh, Scotland - Attendance

Internal Seminar 2016 - School Seminar at University of the Witwatersrand on “Empirical methods for Seasonal Tem- Presentations perature prediction ”

2014 - School Seminar at University of the Witwatersrand on “New Methods for Detection and Attribution of Climate Change ”

2011 - Department Seminar at University of Exeter on “Existing Regression Methods for Detection and Attribution”

2010, 2011, 2012 - College Graduate seminars (annual progress reports), University of Exeter.

2007 - Faculty Seminar at Hawassa University on “Association of HIV infection with diﬀerent risk factors ”

Higher degrees • I co-supervised one PhD for about one year (2017/18) at Wits. The PhD work was in a good supervision shape when I left Wits and we have submitted one paper for publication from part of the work I co-supervised. • I supervised one MSc dissertation at Wits and the student graduated successfully in 2018. • Supervised one part-time and one full-time honors projects at Wits. The students graduated successfully in 2016 and 2018. The part-time project was the highest scorer of all honors projects in that year (2016). • I supervised MSc dissertations of 3 full-time students at Hawassa University in Ethiopia. All graduated successfully in 2013.

Academic Citizen- • Manuscript Review. Have reviewed two papers: one for Entropy and the other for Revista ship/Services Brasileira de Meteorologia journals. • NRF research proposal Reviewer. Have reviewed a research proposal titled “Spatial and Spatio-temporal Modelling of Real Life Data”, submitted to NRF in SA for funding. • External Examiner/moderator. I have been an external examiner of a postgraduate course (Time Series) at University of Johannesburg, SA. • Postgrad research projects/dissertation examination. I examined 5 honours projects and 1 masters dissertation at Wits, SA. • Examination of PG research proposals. Examined one PhD and one MSc research proposals; and several honours project proposals at Wits, SA.

Trainings & • Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (LTHE). I attended a 2-staged training on Certificates LTHE at University of Exeter and got certified. This programme is accredited by the British Higher Education Academy. • Teaching and Learning in Science. This is a 3 days training offered by University of the Witwatersrand on teaching and learning particularly in Science. • Lecture capture. A half-day training offered by Wits on recording lectures and making it accessible for students when face-to-face lecture is not possible under some circumstances. • Assessment for learning . One day training offered by University of the Witwatersrand on assessment. • Wits e-intermediate. A half day training offered by University of the Witwatersrand on e- learning.

5 • From Course Outline to Course Approval. One day training offered by University of the Witwatersrand on course designing and modification • Postgraduate supervision. One day training offered by University of the Witwatersrand on postgraduate supervision. • Statistics of Extremes. A one-day workshop by Prof. Gomes from University of Lisbon, hosted by the Department of Statistics at University of Pretoria.

Professional • American Geophysical Union (AGU) Membership • South African Statistical Association (SASA) • Ethiopian Statistical Association (ESA) • Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences • Exeter Initiative for Statistics and its Applications (ExIStA)

Computer Skills • Statistical Packages: Mainly R, and have some experience in SPSS, Stata, SAS. • Applications: LATEX, common Windows database, spreadsheet, and presentation software. • Operating Systems: Windows, Mac OS X Lion, Linux.

Publications 1. Turasie, A.A. and Wencheko, E. (2006). Association of HIV Infection with some Selected Fac- tors and Modeling the Chance of Contracting HIV: The Case of Hawassa and Its Surrounding. Journal of the Ethiopian Statistical Association, Vol. 15, 25-46. 2. Turasie, A.A, Stephenson, D.B, Davidson, J.E.H. and Jupp, T. (2012). New Cointegration Methods for Detection and Attribution of Climate Trends. Proceedings of the European Geo- sciences Union (EGU) conference, 2012 EGU, Vol. 14, Veinna, Austria. 3. Turasie, A.A. and Coelho, C.A.S. (2016). Cointegration Modelling for Empirical South Amer- ican Seasonal Temperature Forecasts. International Journal of Climatology 36: 4523-4533; DOI: 10.1002/joc.4649. 4. Davidson, J.E.H, Stephenson, D.B. and Turasie, A.A. (2016). Time Series Modelling of Pale- oclimate Data. Environmetrics 27(1): 55-65; DOI: 10.1002/env.2373 5. Turasie, A.A. and Stephenson, D. B. (2018/9). Improved Cointegration Method for Detection and Attribution of Changes in Global Mean Temperature. In preparation. 6. Ndebele, N., Grab, S. and Turasie, A.A. (2018/9). Rainfall trends and periodicity in the southwestern Cape, South Africa: 1841-2016. In review 7. Turasie, A.A. ( ? ). Exceedance and return period of high temperatures in the African region. In preparation.