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Biography and education
Tahir Ekin is Fields Chair in Business Analytics and Professor of Analytics at McCoy College of Business, Texas State University, and the founding Director of the Texas State Center for Analytics and Data Science (CADS). His work lies at the intersection of probabilistic modeling, statistical learning, decision-making under uncertainty, and adversarial AI. As Director of CADS, he provides strategic leadership for interdisciplinary AI research and initiatives spanning business, health, public policy, and national security, with a strong emphasis on translating methodological advances into high-impact, real-world applications. His recent research focuses on adversarial machine learning, AI robustness, and applications of natural language processing, particularly in high-stakes domains such as health care fraud, risk analytics, and complex decision systems. His teaching experience include the areas of statistics, analytics, data mining and AI. His areas of expertise include health care fraud analytics and decision modeling under uncertainty.
His book on health care fraud analytics titled “Statistics and Health Care Fraud: How to Save Billions" has been published by ASA-CRC Series on Statistical Reasoning in Science and Society. His scholar work has appeared in a variety of academic journals including European Journal of Operational Research, Annals of Operations Research, International Statistical Review, The American Statistician, and JRSS Series C. His research has been funded more than $1M by federal, state and private agencies and foundations including National Science Foundation, Air Force Scientific Office of Research, Texas Health and Human Services, and BBVA Foundation. It has been recognized by awards from external organizations including International Society for Business and Industrial Statistics (ISBIS), American Statistical Association (ASA), Statistical Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI), University of Cagliari, American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council, and MITRE. He was awarded the 2016-2018 Brandon Dee Roberts Endowed Professorship, 2018, 2020 and 2022 Presidential Distinction Awards for Excellence in Scholarly/Creative Activity, and in Service. He also served in Texas State University President's Cabinet between 2021 and 2023 as Presidential Fellow.
Prior to Texas State University, he was teaching at GWU School of Business and working as a statistician at Integrated Management Services. He has been involved in developing solutions for practical problems using tools of Operations Research and Statistics in diverse areas as financial risk management, demand management, health care fraud detection, supply chain management and manufacturing for companies including IFC (World Bank), Carlsberg and P&G.
He is currently a Texas State University Faculty Senator, the President-Elect of ISBIS, and an elected member of International Statistical Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from The George Washington University and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey.
His book on health care fraud analytics titled “Statistics and Health Care Fraud: How to Save Billions" has been published by ASA-CRC Series on Statistical Reasoning in Science and Society. His scholar work has appeared in a variety of academic journals including European Journal of Operational Research, Annals of Operations Research, International Statistical Review, The American Statistician, and JRSS Series C. His research has been funded more than $1M by federal, state and private agencies and foundations including National Science Foundation, Air Force Scientific Office of Research, Texas Health and Human Services, and BBVA Foundation. It has been recognized by awards from external organizations including International Society for Business and Industrial Statistics (ISBIS), American Statistical Association (ASA), Statistical Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI), University of Cagliari, American Council for Technology-Industry Advisory Council, and MITRE. He was awarded the 2016-2018 Brandon Dee Roberts Endowed Professorship, 2018, 2020 and 2022 Presidential Distinction Awards for Excellence in Scholarly/Creative Activity, and in Service. He also served in Texas State University President's Cabinet between 2021 and 2023 as Presidential Fellow.
Prior to Texas State University, he was teaching at GWU School of Business and working as a statistician at Integrated Management Services. He has been involved in developing solutions for practical problems using tools of Operations Research and Statistics in diverse areas as financial risk management, demand management, health care fraud detection, supply chain management and manufacturing for companies including IFC (World Bank), Carlsberg and P&G.
He is currently a Texas State University Faculty Senator, the President-Elect of ISBIS, and an elected member of International Statistical Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Decision Sciences from The George Washington University and a B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Bilkent University, Turkey.
Teaching Interests
Research Interests
Featured grants
- Qasem, Apan Muhammad (Principal), Royal, Cindy L (Co-Principal), Hewitt, Barbara A (Co-Principal), Booth, Chad (Co-Principal), Ashford-Hanserd, Shetay Nicole (Co-Principal), Sriraman, Vedaraman (Co-Principal), Forsythe, Michelle Elizabeth (Co-Principal), Dolezel, Diane M (Supporting), Omana Sudhakaran, Pratheesh O (Supporting), Lollar, Jonathan Ernest (Supporting), Roundtree, Aimee Kendall (Supporting), Ekin, Tahir (Supporting), Cordero, Rafael A (Supporting), Lopez, Omar S (Supporting), Mendez, Francis A (Supporting). STEM-CLEAR: Creating Contextualized Learning Pathways across Academic and Cultural Boundaries, National Science Foundation, Federal, $2646529. (Submitted: August 8, 2023, Funded: June 1, 2024 - June 2029). Grant.
- Ekin, Tahir (Principal), Tesic, Jelena (Co-Principal), Qasem, Apan Muhammad (Co-Principal), Valles Molina, Damian (Co-Principal), Summers, Lucia (Co-Principal), Hewitt, Barbara A (Supporting), Liu, Xiangping (Supporting), Chang, Carolyn T (Supporting), Mendez, Francis A (Supporting), Irvin, Jennifer A (Supporting), Resendiz, Maria D (Supporting). Expanding AI Curriculum and Infrastructure at Texas State University to Advance Interdisciplinary Research and Grow a Diverse AI Workforce, National Science Foundation, Federal, $400000. (Submitted: June 2023, Funded: January 2024 - December 2025). Grant.
- Ekin, Tahir. Adversarial Machine Learning for Disinformation Detection, Research Enhancement Program, Texas State University, $8000. (Submitted: October 2020, Funded: December 2020 - May 2022). Grant.
- Rios Insua, David (Principal), Ekin, Tahir (Supporting), Percent Contribution: %5. Adversarial Machine Learning: Methods, Computations and Applications to Malware, Fake News and Autonomous Vehicles, Private / Foundation / Corporate, $110000. (Submitted: October 2019, Funded: March 2020 - March 2022). Grant.
- Feng, Li (Supporting), Chen, Xiao (Principal), Ekin, Tahir (Supporting), Musal, Rasim (Supporting). Enabling and Improving Data-Driven Research at Texas State University, National Science Foundation, Federal, $499896.00. (Funded: October 1, 2014 - September 30, 2017). Grant.
Featured scholarly/creative works
- Ekin, T., Naveiro, R., Barran, A. T., & Rios Insua, D. (2023). Augmented Probability Simulation Methods for Sequential Games. European Journal of Operational Research, 306(1), 418-430.
- Ekin, T., & Aktekin, T. (2021). Decision Making under Uncertain and Dependent System Rates in Service Systems. European Journal of Operational Research, 291(1), 335–348.
- Zafari, B., & Ekin, T. (2019). Topic Modelling for Medical Prescription Fraud and Abuse Detection. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series C: Applied Statistics, 68, 751–769.
- Ekin, T. (2019). Statistics and Health Care Fraud: How to Save Billions. Boca Raton, FL.: Chapman Hall/CRC Press. ASA-CRC Series on Statistical Reasoning in Science and Society. Retrieved from https://www.crcpress.com/Statistics-and-Health-Care-Fraud-How-to-Save-Billions/Ekin/p/book/9781138197428
- Shaw, L., & Ekin, T. (n.d.). A Machine Learning Approach for Anomaly Detection in COVID-19 PCR Test Results Using Isolation Forests.
Featured awards
- Award / Honor Recipient: Steven R. “Steve” Gregg Excellence Endowed Professorship, Texas State University McCoy College of Business. January 1, 2022 - August 2023
- Award / Honor Recipient: 2020 Texas State University Presidential Distinction Award in Scholar/Creative Activities, Texas State University. 2020
- Award / Honor Recipient: 2018 Texas State University Presidential Distinction Award in Scholar/Creative Activities, Texas State University. August 2018
- Award / Honor Recipient: International Statistical Institute Elected Member. 2019 - Present
- Award / Honor Recipient: Defense Tech Connect Data/AI Innovation Spotlight, Defense Tech Connect. May 2022 - September 2022
Featured service activities
- Chair
INFORMS Military and Security Society Awards Committee
- Other
ISBA Industrial Statistics Section
- Member
INFORMS Military and Security Society Board
- Member
Teaching and Learning in AI Conference
- Chair
Denise Smart Endowed Chair in Marketing Search Committee
- Member
Academic Data Science Alliance Working Group in Member Programs Guidance