Rebecca Kurtz-Garcia earned her M.S. degree in statistics from Ball State University and her Ph.D. in applied statistics from the University of California Riverside. She has worked on a variety of projects related to time series, reliability analysis, biostatistics, sports analysis and fiscal policy.  Her current research is on long run variance estimators for dependent, and possibly multivariate, data.  Common settings with dependent data include time series data sets, economic stocks and indicators, and steady state simulations. Kurtz-Garcia is excited to support Smith’s mission of empowering and educating the next generation of women through statistics.