Biography
Dr. (Fletcher) Hank Ibser spent the majority of his life in Northern California. He grew up in Sacramento as the son of a physics professor and an elementary school teacher and has teaching in his blood. He got his BA Mathematics at UC Berkeley in Mathematics and continued there to get his MA and his PhD in Statistics in 2002. He then stayed at UC Berkeley as a lecturer until coming to Oregon where he taught at Reed College for two years before arriving at Willamette in Fall 2023.Statistician John Tukey said that the best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s backyard, and Dr. Ibser loves to play in a lot of backyards. His PhD thesis was on the effect of increased imprisonment on crime rates and his projects have included work with geologists (developing methodology for finding viable geothermal energy sites based on seismic data), lawyers (as an expert consultant to the CA Dept of Managed Health Care), and lighting scientists (current work on the relationships between light exposure and circadian rhythms/sleep/health).
Dr. Ibser tries to find time to play music (alto saxophone and electric bass), ultimate frisbee, and Dungeons & Dragons.