Ayala Cohen

General Information

Prof. Cohen's first degree, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was in Mathematics, Physics and Statistics. Her Ph.D. at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD was in Statistics. She spent her post doctorate as a member of the technical staff at Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ. She also spent two summers there (1970, 1980) and two years during sabbaticals (73-74, 78-79). She was a visiting professor during her sabbaticals at Stanford University during 82-83 and at the University of Washington in Seattle during the Spring of 1991. She was also a teaching visitor at the Institut Universitaire de Medecine Sociale et Preventive in Lausanne. Prof. Cohen is a past president of the Israel Statistical Society and was a member of the advisory committee for statistical methodology nominated by the National Statistical Council.

Research Summary

Prof. Cohen is an applied statistician. Her contribution to this discipline has two interrelated aspects. The first is the application of advanced statistical methods to practical problems. The second is the development of new methods. Starting with her work at Bell Laboratories and throughout all the years at the Technion she worked with researchers in various disciplines and while publishing joint papers, she also wrote methodological papers in statistical journals on the techniques which she developed. Thus, her publications include joint papers with researchers in various areas such as Behavioral Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, as well as papers in the statistical journals. Prof. Cohen has a continuous cooperation with medical doctors. Her papers in biostatistics include publications in the medical journals, as well as methodological papers in the journal Statistics in Medicine. This is one of the leading journals for the exposition of new statistical techniques relevant to medical research. She is also involved in research in related areas such as clinical chemistry and environmental studies.

Prof. Cohen, together with Prof. Paul Feigin heads the Technion Statistical Laboratory which provides a broad range of consulting services to academic researchers as well as to government and industry. These projects often involve the application of sophisticated multivariate analysis techniques. For example,

• Analysis of hierarchical data
• Structural equations modeling
• CART (Classification and Regression Trees)
• Nonparametric regressions.

Among the larger projects at the Statistics Laboratory for the government were:

• A study to evaluate the effect of patrolling road police on car accidents (for the Ministry of Transportation);
• A study to evaluate the effect of air pollution on the respiratory condition of Chronic Lung Disease patients (supported by the Ministry of the Environment)
• The Effect of Operational Cloud Seeding on the Increase of on the Kinneret BasinWater Yield,( Project sponsered by the Hydrologic Service of the Water Commission, Israel).
• Statistical Analysis of Air Pollution Levels in the Haifa Metropolitan Area, During the Years 2001-2003 (funded by the Israeli Electricity Company )

Current Research Projects

Applications of modern statistical methods in biostatistics and in the behavioral sciences

Development of new methods, particularly for multivariate data

Selected Publications