Max Schneider, PhD

Max Schneider is a Research Statistician at USGS's Earthquake Science Center. His research focuses on the quantification and visualization of risk and uncertainty for earthquake forecasts, centered on user needs. Current projects are on user-centered design of forecast products, building qualitative and quantitative methods for eliciting user needs, translating them into design choices for maps, graphics and interactive systems, and evaluating how these forecast products affect the perception and communication of risk. He also works on statistical testing and modeling for earthquake forecasts, including USGS’s operational aftershock forecasting system. Here, he develops statistical metrics and tests for evaluating probabilistic aftershock forecasts in a user-centric approach. Past modeling, testing and visualization research has focused on hurricane wave prediction, land use changes, human rights, and other natural and social phenomena. Max holds a PhD in Statistics from the University of Washington (with supplemental training in decision science at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, Germany) and a Master's of Science in Mathematics (Data Analysis and Mathematical Modeling) from the University of Potsdam, Germany.