James J. Cochran is Professor of Applied Statistics, the Mike and Kathy Mouron Research Chair and Associate Dean for Faculty and Research at the University of Alabama. Born in Dayton, Ohio, he earned his B.S., M.S. and M.B.

A. degrees from Wright State University and his Ph.D. from the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Cochran has served at The University of Alabama since 2014 and has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, Universidad de Talca, the University of South Africa, Pole Universitaire Leonard de Vinci and University College of London. Dr. Cochran has published more than 50 papers in the development and application of operations research and statistical methods.

He has published his research in Management Science, The American Statistician, Communications in Statistics-Theory and Methods, Annals of Operations Research, European Journal of Operational Research, Journal of Combinatorial Optimization, INFORMS Journal on Applied Analytics and Statistics and Probability Letters. He was the 2008 recipient of the INFORMS Prize for the Teaching of Operations Research Practice and the 2010 recipient of the Mu Sigma Rho Statistical Education Award. Dr. Cochran was elected to the International Statistics Institute in 2005 and named a fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2011. He received the Founders Award in 2014 and the Karl E. Peace Award in 2015 from the American Statistical Association. In 2017, he received the American Statistical Associations Waller Distinguished Teaching Career Award and was named a fellow of INFORMS. In 2018, he received the INFORMS Presidents Award.

A strong advocate for effective statistics and operations research education as a means of improving the quality of applications to real problems, Dr. Cochran has organized and chaired teaching workshops throughout the world.