James J. Cochran is Professor of Applied Statistics, the Mike and Cathy 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 and Pole Universitaire Leonard de Vinci. 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, BMJ Global Health 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. 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 Association's Waller Distinguished Teaching Career Award and in 2018 he received the INFORMS President's Award. Dr. Cochran is an elected member of the International Statistics Institute, a fellow of the American Statistical Association and a fellow of INFORMS. 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.