Michael D. Jackson is the director of Rice University’s Professional Master of Statistics (MStat) program and a faculty lecturer for the Department of Statistics and the Center for Computational Finance and Economic Systems (CoFES).

Jackson is an experienced instructor in combining principles from the fields of statistics, data science, computing, and operations management for investment analysis and risk management, stochastic modeling for markets and finance, advanced time series analysis, and machine learning.

Throughout his career, Jackson has worked on the front lines for several venture capital and startup companies. He is currently head of data science and machine learning for New Territory Advisors, LLC, a hedge-fund company in Houston, TX.

Before joining Rice, Jackson was the manager of data analytics for BET+ where he used statistical methods to model and forecast metrics used to manage two million-plus streaming service subscribers. He has worked in finance, information technology and operations management for JPMorgan Chase, Sysco, and venture capital firms, including Diversity Fund Houston and Houston Exponential.

After graduating with a B.S. in management science and engineering from Stanford University in 2004, Jackson taught high school mathematics for eight years at the Fort Worth Independent School District. He earned an MBA from Southern Methodist University in 2014 with concentrations in finance and information technology and operations management and graduated from Rice with a Ph.D. in statistics in 2022.