LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Karunarathna “K.B.” Kulasekera, PhD, professor and graduate program coordinator of mathematical sciences at Clemson University, will join the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences July 1 as the chair of biostatistics and bioinformatics, pending Board of Trustee approval.
“We welcome K.B.’s leadership in taking on challenges associated with study design and data analysis of research conducted in the health sciences,” said David L. Dunn, MD, PhD, executive vice president for health affairs. “We were extremely pleased to recruit K.B. as the new chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics.”
“At the time of the search, there were a number of chair positions open around the country, but he was primarily interested in our program because of the breadth of expertise of the faculty, the high level of integration of the school, and the potential for significant achievements over the near term,” said Richard Clover, MD, dean, School of Public Health and Information Sciences.
“The search committee, chaired by David Tollerud, MD, did an exceptional job at bringing to UofL extremely qualified candidates and determining which person will fit best in our School of Public Health and Information Sciences.”
“Recruiting graduate students is very competitive in the mathematical sciences field and the search committee was very impressed with K.B.’s success in this area,” Tollerud said.
Kulasekera works closely with undergraduate advisors from numerous colleges and universities and includes current students in the recruiting process. He began an open house program for prospective students and started the “Bridge to Graduate Studies” program for entering graduate students.
Kulasekera, who earned a doctorate degree in statistics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, joined the Clemson University faculty in 1988 as an assistant professor of mathematical sciences. He has authored or co-authored more than 47 peer-reviewed academic publications, and co-authored a textbook on statistics. Kulasekera is associate editor of the Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation and serves on the board of editors for Involve.
In the past two years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has funded Kulasekera’s mathematical science research. He also has served as a consultant for the NSF.
He is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and a member of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.