Robert Clements

Robert Clements is an Assistant Professor in the MS in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence program and the Director of the Center for AI and Data Ethics. His research interests are in spatiotemporal point processes and innovative and creative approaches to data science education. Prior to joining USF he had a nearly ten-year career in industry, holding several positions throughout the San Francisco Bay Area as a data scientist and data science manager/director, working primarily in developing machine learning models in different domains. He received a PhD in Statistics from UCLA in 2011 and, before beginning his industry career, was a postdoctoral researcher at the German Research Center for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany, where he studied statistical seismology.

• Machine Learning
• MLOps
• Applied Statistics
• AI and Data Ethics

• Spatiotemporal point processes
• Data science and AI education
• AI ethics

• UCLA, PhD in Statistics, 2011
• UCLA, MS in Statistics, 2009
• Humboldt State University, BA in Mathematics, 2006

• Senior Director of Data Science, Optum
• Data Scientist & Manager, Walmart Labs
• Data Scientist, UnitedHealthcare
• Data Scientist, GE Digital
• Data Scientist, Verisk Analytics

• Clements RA, Makam SM, Dixon H, Shen Y. 2026. Ethical guidelines for machine learning competitions. AI Ethics 6, 387.
• Clements RA and Thiébaut N. 2026. But Have You Ever Deployed a Model to Production? Experiences with Teaching Machine Learning Operations in a Data Science Curriculum. In Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM 48th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE-SEET '26). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 323–331.
• Gordon SJ, Clements RA, Schoenberg FP, Schorlemmer D. 2015. Voronoi residuals and other residual analyses applied to CSEP earthquake forecasts. Spatial Statistics. 14B: 133-150.
• Schneider M, Clements RA, Schorlemmer D, and Rhoades D. 2014. Likelihood- and Residual-Based Evaluation of Medium-Term Earthquake Forecast Models for California. Geophysical Journal International. 198 (3): 1307-1318.
• Clements RA, Schoenberg FP, and Veen A. 2012. Evaluation of space-time point process models using super-thinning. Environmetrics. 23: 606-616.
• Clements RA, Schoenberg FP, and Schorlemmer D. 2011. Residual analysis methods for space-time point processes with applications to earthquake forecast models in California. Annals of Applied Statistics. 5 (4): 2549-2571.