Mason Ferlic

Mason was born and raised in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He completed his undergrad and masters at the University of Michigan in 2016 where he studied aerospace engineering and graduated with Honors. While at Michigan Mason ran varsity track and cross-country where he was an 8x All-American, team captain, NCAA Champion, and NCAA student-athlete of the year. After graduating he signed a professional contract and currently competes as a professional athlete racing around the world. The highlight of Mason’s professional running career came in 2021 when he qualified for and competed at the Tokyo Olympics in the 3000m steeplechase for the United States. Mason continues to train and compete professionally while pursuing his Ph.D in statistics with the big goal of winning a medal at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

In terms of Statistics, Mason’s interests primarily lie in the areas of causal inference, experimental design, adaptive interventions, intensive longitudinal data, and reinforcement learning. He is currently working with Dr. Daniel Almirall and the D3C team on his thesis. Mason is excited about developing novel methods useful for answering important causal questions in mobile health and precision medicine. He hopes to incorporate his experiences as an elite athlete in order to optimize the health and well-being of individuals.