I obtained a PhD in mathematics at Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1992 with the dissertation Near Ignorance Classes for Bayesian Analysis written under the supervision of Luis Raúl Pericchi. After obtaining my PhD, my research activity focused on problems on robust Bayesian inference. Subsequently, I worked in problems related to model selection, meta-analysis and spatio-temporal modelling for rainfall and other environmental variables, always from a Bayesian viewpoint. Currently my work is focused on Bayesian spatio-temporal modeling, environmental and geostatistical applications, uncertainty quantification on complex computer models, statistical models for extreme values and statistical assessment of climate variability.
I was the Editor in Chief for Bayesian Analysis. I have been Associate Editor for Technometrics and for the Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference. I am an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, Fellow of the American Statistical Association, and Fellow of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis. I was the recipient of the Mitchell Prize, awarded to outstanding papers that describe how a Bayesian analysis has solved an important applied problem, in 2009 and 2019. I have had leadership roles in various committees and boards of the ASA, ISBA, TIES and the Bernoulli Society. I have collaborated, and continue to do so, with researchers from a number of institutions, nationally and internationally. I have supervised the graduate work of 25 students, one of them was the recipient of the 2010 Savage Award to the best thesis in applied Bayesian Methodology. I am currently supervising five more.