President C. Shane Reese was named BYU’s 14th president on March 21, 2023. He had been serving as the academic vice president at BYU since 2019. He previously served as dean of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences from 2017 to 2019 and joined the BYU statistics faculty in 2001.
He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in statistics from BYU and a doctoral degree in statistics from Texas A&M. His research has focused on sports analytics, Bayesian hierarchical models and optimal experimental design. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Laboratory.
President Reese has used his work in solving problems in professional sports franchises, national security and business. At BYU, he received the BYU Young Scholar Award and the BYU Karl G. Maeser Excellence in Teaching Award. He was also the Melvin W. Carter Professor of Statistics. Prior to BYU, he worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a technical staff member.
Wendy Wood Reese was born and raised in the small town of Holden, Utah, the fourth of five children. She received a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from BYU in 1995.
Sister Reese is known for her kindness, and she can often be found delivering treats to others. She loves baking and has her own side business making wedding cakes when she can find time from her other responsibilities. Sister Reese comes from a BYU family and loves the university and all it stands for.
Their remarks will be broadcast live on BYUtv, BYUtv.org (and archived for on-demand streaming), KBYU-TV 11, Classical 89 FM, BYUradio 107.9 FM, and SiriusXM 143. Video, text, and audio are archived on speeches.byu.edu.