Blaza Toman was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia. She studied Mathematics and Statistics, earning a Ph.D. in Statistics from the Ohio State University in 1987 with a specialization in Bayesian Optimal Design. She taught statistics at the graduate and undergraduate level at Rutgers University and at the George Washington University, and was a consultant to several medical device companies on Bayesian clinical trial design and analysis. She became a member of the Statistical Engineering Division at NIST in 2000. Her main research interests remain Bayesian statistical methods.
At NIST, she became interested in uncertainty assessment for measurements in the physical sciences, and more generally in statistical methods relevant to metrology. She collaborates with scientists in many fields and with her colleagues in the Statistical Engineering Division developing statistical methods and software for robust uncertainty quantification and experimental design. One of her other interests is analysis of interlaboratory studies and key comparisons.
W. J. Youden Award in Interlaboratory Testing, the American Statistical Association, 2009.
Silver Medal, Department of Commerce, 2011, for participation in the response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Silver Medal, Department of Commerce, 2016, for work related to the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) for fire modeling.
Bronze Medal, Department of Commerce, 2018, for development of rigorous analytical methods and data-evaluation processes for the determination of chemical purity.
Bronze Medal, Department of Commerce, 2019, for development and implementation of a measurement assurance strategy to improve comparability and reliability of cell-based assays.
Bronze Medal, Department of Commerce, 2021, for the design and development of a robust, SI-traceable, photocatalytic activity measurement system, which includes a new international documentary standard and a new value assignment to NIST Standard Reference Material 1898, Titanium Dioxide Nanomaterial.
Bronze Medal, Department of Commerce, 2022, for the development of high-pressure reference isotherms of nanoscale porous adsorbents.