Joaquin Ortega Sanchez is an Instructional Professor of the Statistics program in the Computer, Electrical, and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) Division at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Joaquín Ortega Sánchez is an instructional professor of statistics who joins the KAUST CEMSE Division after spending the last sixteen years working at the Mathematics Research Center (CIMAT) in Guanajuato, Mexico. Born in Venezuela, Ortega completed his postgraduate and graduate studies in London, where he studied mathematics at King’s College London, before obtaining his Ph.D. in Probability Theory across the city at Imperial College London. After his time in the U.K., he returned to his native Venezuela where he worked for over 20 years at the Universidad Central de Venezuela, Caracas.

His career has seen him teach courses at several institutions around the world, including the Venezuelan Institute of Scientific Research, The University of Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, and The University of Valladolid in Spain. At KAUST, Ortega will take up a principal role as a course instructor in statistics, with the option to lend additional support to selected mathematics courses.

Research Interests

Over the course of his career, Ortega’s research work has focused on stochastic processes, specifically Gaussian processes and time series with applications in oceanography and biostatistics. And more recently his work has focused on functional data analysis. 

Why KAUST?

KAUST certainly impressed me with how much it has achieved in such a short time. I feel that the atmosphere in KAUST has energy. There are many resources, but the challenges are also substantial. However, there is a sense of real purpose here.