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Operations Research Department
Naval Postgraduate School
Monterey, CA 93943

Glasgow Hall 275
(831) 656-3048
DSN: 756-3048
Fax: (831) 656-2595
Email: rdfricke@nps.edu

Professor of Operations Research

Associate Chair for Research

Biography

Professor Fricker holds a Ph.D. and an M.S. in Statistics from Yale University, an M.S. in Operations Research from The George Washington University and a bachelor's degree from the United States Naval Academy. Prior to joining NPS, Dr. Fricker was a Senior Statistician at the RAND Corporation and the Associate Dirctor of the National Security Research Division (NSRD). NSRD includes the National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Commands, and the defense agencies.

Professor Fricker’s current research is focused on studying the performance of various statistical methods for use in biosurveillance, particularly syndromic surveillance, and statistical process control methodologies more generally. His recent research includes developing new spatio-temporal algorithms for biosurveillance, useful for both early event detection and situational awareness, and methods for optimizing the performance of biosurveillance systems. His other recent research includes assessing the effects of individual augmentation deployment on naval personnel retention, researching Federal support to state and local organizations for domestic terrorism preparedness, and investigating the use of pesticides by U.S. forces during the Gulf War.

Published widely in leading professional journals, Professor Fricker is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA), an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI), and a former chair of the ASA Section on Statistics in Defense and National Security. He is a contributing editor to Interfaces and he is on the editorial boards of Statistics, Politics, and Policy and the International Journal of Quality Engineering and Technology.

Research Interests

• Statistical methods to detect bioterrorism incidents
• Quality control and statistical process control
• Survey design and analysis
• Military manpower and personnel issues: recruiting, retention, effects of deployment