Rebecca Kurtz-Garcia, is an assistant professor of mathematics and statistical and data sciences at Smith College, Department of Statistical & Data Sciences. She earned her M.S. degree in statistics at 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 robust variance estimation for dependent multivariate data, which is often a critical component in hypothesis-testing procedures. Common settings with dependent data include economic indicators, steady state simulations, environmental metrics and other time series applications. Rebecca is also one of the founding members of the NISS Graduate Student Network.