Erol A. Peköz

Associate Professor of Operations Management
Boston University School of Management

Contact Information

Erol A. Peköz
595 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 607
Boston, MA 02215
Phone: (617) 353-2676, Fax: (617) 353-4098
Email: pekoz@bu.edu

Profile

Erol Peköz has a BS degree from Cornell University, and MS and Ph.D degrees in Operations Research from University of California, Berkeley. Working in the areas of applied probability and statistics, Professor Peköz studies stochastic problems in Finance and Operations Management. These include queueing models for congestion in operations, theory of rare events, Monte Carlo simulation, risk management, and statistical models for health care provider quality-of-service profiling. His work appears in academic journals such as Journal of Applied Probability, Statistics and Probability Letters, Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, Medical Care, and Statistics in Medicine. He has conducted research funded by the Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Veterans Health Administration. He has also worked as a consultant. Professor Peköz has also taught on the faculty at Harvard, UCLA and also at UC Berkeley, where he received an award for outstanding instruction.  At Boston University he was awarded the Broderick Prize for Teaching.

Books

  1. S. Ross, E. Peköz. A Second Course in Probability, ProbabilityBookstore.com, Boston: May 1, 2007.  Read an interview about it here, a review from the MAA (Mathematical Association of America) here, a review from Choice Magazine here, and a review from Amazon here.

 

  1. E. Peköz. The Manager’s Guide to Statistics.  ProbabilityBookstore.com, Boston: March 1, 2009.

Papers

  1. E. Peköz and A. Röllin. Rates for exponential approximation. In preparation.

 

  1. E. Peköz, M. Shwartz, C. Christiansen, D. Berlowitz. Approximate Bayesian models for aggregate data when individual-level data is confidential or unavailable. Under Review.

 

  1. M. Brown, E. Peköz and S.M. Ross. Finding expectations of monotone functions of binary random variables by simulation, with applications to reliability, finance, and round robin tournaments. Under Review.

 

  1. V. Cekanavicius, E. Peköz, A. Röllin and M. Shwartz. A three-parameter binomial approximation. Under Review.

 

  1. M. Brown, E. Peköz and S.M. Ross. A Random Permutation Model Arising in Chemistry.  Journal of Applied Probability, 45 (2008), no. 4, pp. 1060-1070.

 

  1. E. Peköz, S. Ross, S. Seshadri. How Nearly Do Arriving Customers See Time-Average Behavior? Journal of Applied Probability, 45 (2008), no. 4, pp. 963-971.

 

  1. E. Peköz, S. Ross.  Relating Customer and Time Averages Using ‘Forward’ Coupling From the Past. Journal of Applied Probability, 45 (2008), no. 2, pp. 568-574.

 

  1. M. Shwartz, J.Ren, E. Peköz, X.Wang, A. Cohen, J.Restuccia .  Estimating a Composite Measure of Hospital Quality from the Hospital Compare Database: Differences When Using a Bayesian Hierarchical Latent Variable Model versus Denominator-Based Weights.  Medical Care, Volume 46, Number 8, August 2008, pp. 778-785.

 

  1. M. Brown, E. Peköz and S.M. Ross. Coupon Collecting.  Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 22 (2008), pp. 221-229.

 

  1. S. Ziya, H. Ayhan, R. Foley, E. Peköz. A Monotonicity Result for a G/GI/c Queue with Balking or Reneging. Journal of Applied Probability, 43 (2006), no. 4, pp. 1201-1205.

 

  1. E. Peköz. A Compound Poisson Approximation Inequality. Journal of Applied Probability, 43 (2006), no. 1, pp. 282--288.

 

  1. E. Peköz, J. Blanchet. Heavy Traffic Limits via Brownian Embeddings. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 20 (2006), pp. 595-598

 

  1. M. Shwartz, A. Ash, E. Peköz. Risk Adjustment and Risk-Adjusted Provider Profiles. Journal of Healthcare Technology and Management, Volume 7, Number 1-2 (2006), pp. 15 - 42.

 

  1. M. Shwartz, E. Peköz, M. Posner, J. Restuccia, L. Iezzoni. Do Variations in Disease Prevalence Limit the Usefulness of Population-Based Hospitalization Rates For Studying Variations in Hospital Admissions? Medical Care. 43(1):4-11, January 2005.

 

  1. E. Peköz and S.M. Ross. Compound random variables. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 18 (2004), no. 4, 473-484.

 

  1. E. Peköz. Samuelson's Fallacy of Large Numbers and Optional Stopping.  Article reprinted in Paul A.Samuelson: Critical Assessments of Contemporary Economists, John Cunningham Wood and Michael McLure (eds.), New York: Routledge, 2004. 

 

  1. E. Peköz, R. Righter, and C. Xia. Characterizing Losses During Busy Periods in Finite Buffer Systems. Journal of Applied Probability, 40, 1, March 2003, pp. 250-256.
     
  2. E. Peköz. Some Memoryless Bandit Policies. Journal of Applied Probability, 40, 1, March 2003, pp. 250-256.

  3. Ash, M. Shwartz, and E. Peköz.  Comparing Outcomes Across Providers. LI. Iezzoni, ed. Risk Adjustment for Measuring Health Care Outcomes, 3rd edition.  Health Administration Press, Chicago, IL, 2003.

  4. E. Peköz, M. Shwartz, L. Iezzoni, A. Ash, M. Posner, J. Restuccia. Comparing the Importance of Disease Rate vs. Practice Style Variations in Explaining Small Area Variations in Hospitalization Rates for Two Respiratory Conditions.  Statistics in Medicine, Vol 22, 2003, pp. 1775-1786.

 

  1. E. Peköz and N. Joglekar. Poisson Traffic Flow in a General Feedback Queue. Journal of Applied Probability, 39, 2002, pp. 630-636.
     
  2. E. Peköz. Optimal Policies for Multi-server Non-preemptive Priority Queues. Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, 42, 2002, pp. 91-101.
     
  3. E. Peköz. Samuelson's Fallacy of Large Numbers and Optional Stopping. Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2002, Vol. 69, No. 1, pp. 1-7.
       
  4. E. Peköz and M. Lapre. Inequalities for Queues with a Learning Server. Queueing Systems: Theory and Applications, 37, 2001, pp. 337-347.
     
  5. E. Peköz. More on Using Forced to Idle Time to Improve Performance in Polling Models. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 13, 1999, pp. 489 - 496.
     
  6. E. Peköz. Ignatov's Theorem and Correlated Record Values. Statistics and Probability Letters, 43, 1999, pp. 107-111.
     
  7. E. Peköz. On the Mean Number of Refusals in a Busy Period. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 13, 1999, pp. 71-74.
     
  8. E. Peköz and S.M. Ross. Mean Cover Times for Coupon Collecting and Star Graphs. In Advances in Applied Probability and Stochastic Processes, Academic Publishers, Boston, January 1999.
     
  9. E. Peköz. A Note on Reliability Inequalities Via Conditional Inequalities. Journal of Applied Probability, 36, 1999, pp. 1251-1254.
     
  10. E. Peköz and S.M. Ross. Estimating the Mean Cover Time for a Semi-Markov Process Via Simulation. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 11, 1997, pp. 267-271.
     
  11. S. Hershkorn, E. Peköz, and S.M. Ross. Policies without Memory for the Infinite-Armed Bernoulli Bandit under the Average-Reward Criteria. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 10, 1996, pp. 21-28.
     
  12. E. Peköz. Stein's Method for Geometric Approximation. Journal of Applied Probability, 33, 1996, pp. 707-713.
     
  13. E. Peköz and S.M. Ross. A Simple Derivation of Exact Reliability Formulas for Linear and Circular Consecutive k-of-n:F Systems. Journal of Applied Probability, 32, 1995, pp. 554-557.
     
  14. E. Peköz and S.M. Ross. Improving Poisson Approximations. Probability in the Engineering and Informational Sciences, 8, 1994, pp. 449-462.

Links

·         Probabilitybookstore.com

·         Operations Management Department

·         Center for Information and Systems Engineering (CISE)

·         School of Management

·         Boston University

·         Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS)

·         Applied Probability Society 

·         My Photograph

·         My CV