Psychology’s Ivan Hernandez named Data Science Faculty Fellow

20 Oct 2023

A man in a sports coat and dress shirt stands near a tree in sunny weather. — Ivan Hernandez. Photo by Yasmine Elfeki.

Ivan Hernandez, assistant professor of psychology in the College of Science at Virginia Tech, has been awarded the Data Science Faculty Fellowship by the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors.

Data Science Faculty Fellowships were established in 2021 by an anonymous couple to enhance the national and international prominence of the study and teaching of data science at Virginia Tech. The fellowships recognize faculty dedicated to extraordinary research and teaching, to recruit scholars with exceptional records of achievement, and to retain high-performing faculty members with scholarly focus on data science or the application of data science within and across disciplines.

Recipients hold the title of Data Science Faculty Fellow for a period of three years.

A member of the Virginia Tech faculty since 2018, Hernandez’s research program is focused on developing new methodologies to facilitate studying organizations and people and incorporates statistical modeling, machine learning, and natural language models. He develops tools and approaches to understand and predict human behavior in group settings, and his work has been published in leading methodological and research journals. He has authored four book chapters and has given more than 50 professional presentations based on his scholarship.

A highlight of his research program is the sustained provision of computer code and free open-source tools to facilitate research by other researchers and Ph.D. students. In addition to his strong publication record, his research has been supported by a current National Science Foundation grant and a second grant from the National Reconnaissance Organization. He also received a fellowship with the Consortium Research Fellows Program.

Hernandez has taught multiple quantitative courses in the Department of Psychology. He is known by his students and faculty colleagues for his ability to communicate complex machine learning methods and coding languages. His course in the behavioral decision science minor, Predicting Social Behavior, attracts students from almost every college in the university.

Before coming to Virginia Tech, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University for two years. He earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and two master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in social and organizational psychology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.