Vogel delivers Feng Lecture

Professor Emeritus Richard Vogel of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering was recently chosen to deliver the Feng Distinguished Lecture at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Each year since 1989, the Feng Distinguished Lecture brings to campus a distinguished professional engineer or educator in the field of civil and/or environmental engineering to present a major talk and interact with students and faculty.

Vogel’s lecture, “When Heavy Tails Disrupt Statistical Inference, Machine Learning and Hydrologic Modelling,” focused on the impact of heavy tailed datasets on the application of hydrologic models. Engineers create hydrologic models to make predictions and manage water resources. Heavy tailed datasets have observations much larger than the mean or expected value which are quite common instead of rare as expected for light tails. The occurrence of heavy tailed datasets is increasingly common and can throw off prediction models and lead to inaccurate conclusions. 

Most existing research in heavy tails focuses on their effects on extreme events such as floods and droughts. In his lecture, Vogel discussed the impact and occurrence of heavy tails on a wide variety of datasets, including residential water use, river discharge, total nitrogen loads, and water resource model errors. The lecture also summarized his paper that was recently published in The American Statistician, titled “When heavy tails disrupt statistical inference”.

Vogel earned his PhD in water resource systems from Cornell University. His research focuses on using statistical and systems approaches to solve problems in the field of hydrology and water resources engineering. His work has applications in a wide range of areas, including reservoir operations, water quality, watershed modeling, environmental statistics, and frequency analysis of natural hazards. After 33 years teaching at Tufts, he transitioned to the roles of professor emeritus and research professor in 2016.

The Tsuan Hua Feng Distinguished Lecture Series was established to honor the memory of Tsuan "Tom" Feng, who served on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for 31 years. As the first sanitary engineering professor appointed at the university, Feng established the Sanitary Engineering Program (later renamed the Environmental Engineering Program) and served as director until 1974. He was appointed emeritus professor following his retirement in 1982.