Trevor D. Ruiz

Appointments

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Assistant Professor | 2023-present

University of California, Santa Barbara

Visiting Assistant Professor | 2020-2023

Education

Oregon State University

Ph.D. Statistics | 2020

M.S. Statistics | 2017

Reed College

B.A. Philosophy | 2011

Interests

I’m an Assistant Professor in the Statistics Department at Cal Poly SLO, where I work on applied statistics, collaborations in biology and ecology, and undergraduate and master’s level teaching. My interests and background in statistics are in methodology for high-dimensional data, model selection, multivariate analysis, and time series analysis, and I’m especially interested in applied projects that intersect with these areas.

Current projects (AY25-26)

• Using depth-stratified association networks to understand the spatial ecology of harmful algal blooms in coastal waters. Collaboration with Alexis Pasulka, Biological Sciences Department, Cal Poly. Students: Barbara Ibrahim, Lucy Nelson.

• Dynamic coupling of pH and oxygen in Morro Bay. Collaboration with Emily Bockmon, Chemistry and Biochemistry Department, and Julia Schedler, Statistics Department, Cal Poly. Students: Jose Garcia, Alea Seifert.

• Geographic and environmental drivers of differential thermoregulation and metabolism among rattlesnake populations across North America. Collaboration with Emily Taylor and Haley Moniz, Biological Sciences Department, Cal Poly, and others. Students: Nicole Yee, Allen Choi, Emma Reardon.

• Phylogeny vs. physiology: how a guild of desert lizards maintain water balance. Collaboration with Emily Taylor, Biological Sciences Department, Cal Poly, and Savannah Weaver, Department of Biology, UNC. Students: Ethan Barnes and Alvaro Ramos.

• An iterative algorithm for partial envelope estimation in high-dimensional regression. Students: Nathan Greenfield, Nick Patrick.

Manuscripts & Publications

Annotations: student coauthors${}^{†}$; co-lead authors${}^{\mathrm{\S }}$.

• E.M. Reardon${}^{†\mathrm{\S }}$, N.E. Yee${}^{†\mathrm{\S }}$, H.A. Moniz, T.D. Ruiz, S.M. Boback, E.N. Taylor. Effects of reproductive status on standard metabolic rate of the prairie rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) at high elevation site with a short active season. In preparation.

• E.V. Satterthwaite${}^{\mathrm{\S }}$, T.D. Ruiz${}^{\mathrm{\S }}$, K.G. Chan${}^{†}$, N. Patrick${}^{†}$, M.N. Alksne, N.V. Patin, J. Dinasquet, R.H. Lampe, A.O. Shelton, L. Thomas, B. Semmens. Microbial and small plankton environmental DNA predicts density of blue, fin, and humpback whales in the southern California bight. In preparation.

• T. D. Ruiz, S. Bhattacharyya, S. C. Emerson (2025). Sparse estimation of parameter support sets for generalized vector autoregressions by resampling and model aggregation. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation. [paper] [preprint] [code]

• H. A. Moniz, J. H. Buck, H. L. Crowell, S. M. Goetz, T. D. Ruiz, S. M. Boback, E. N. Taylor (2024). High thermal quality rookeries facilitate high thermoregulatory accuracy in pregnant female rattlesnakes. Journal of Thermal Biology. [paper] [data] [code]

• A. M. E. Ojwang'${}^{\mathrm{\S }}$, T. D. Ruiz${}^{\mathrm{\S }}$, S. Bhattacharyya, S. Chatterjee, P. S. Ojiambo, D. H. Gent (2021). A general framework for spatio-temporal modeling of epidemics with multiple epicenters: application to an aerially dispersed plant pathogen. Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics. [paper]

Courses

I currently teach courses in probability, applied statistics, and data science. My broader teaching competence includes most areas of statistics at an advanced undergraduate or master’s level.

• [STAT218] Applied statistics for life sciences.
• [STAT590] Graduate seminar in statistics.
• [STAT425] Probability theory.

Student work

• N. Patrick, N. Greenfield (2025). Partial partial least squares regression: a hybrid approach to dimension reduction. Bailey College of Science and Mathematics 2025 Student Research Conference. [poster]

• N.E. Yee, E.M. Reardon (2024). Modeling the baseline metabolic needs of prairie rattlesnakes (Crotalus viridis) based on reproductive status. Presented at 2024 Cal Poly SURP+ Symposium and Bailey College of Science and Mathematics 2025 Student Research Conference. [poster]