Editor’s Note: This article was updated on February 1 to include Lester R. Curtin Award winner Brian Kwan. Unfortunately, he was not named in time to be included in the printed edition of Amstat News.

The following student winners will receive registration and travel support to attend the 2019 Conference on Statistical Practice.

Serifat Adedamola Folorunso

Serifat Adedamola Folorunso, winner of the Lester R. Curtin Award, is a PhD student in the department of statistics at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. She is a graduate statistician of the Royal Statistical Society and a member of the International Biometric Society, International Statistical Institute, Nigerian Statistical Association, Nigerian Statistical Society, and American Statistical Association.

Folorunso is currently a tutorial assistant in her department, as well as a course facilitator under the university distance learning program.

Brian Kwan

Brian Kwan, also a winner of the Lester R. Curtin Award, was born and raised in California. He earned a BS in mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. As an undergraduate, he developed a keen interest in mathematical biology research, which served as the roots for his goal of pursuing a PhD in biostatistics at the University of California, San Diego. His main research interest is in developing prognostic models for identifying patients at high risk of developing diabetic kidney disease.

Outside of research, Brian enjoys teaching math and statistics to students at all education levels, running, watching NBA basketball, and drinking bitter tea.

Sana Charania

Sana Charania, winner of the John J. Bartko Award, grew up in Texas and moved to Georgia for her undergraduate education in anthropology and global health at Emory University. During her undergraduate career, she was an intern at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in surveillance of parasitic diseases, which influenced her decision to pursue epidemiology at Emory’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Charania currently serves as a statistics fellow on the Child Development Studies team at the CDC, where she conducts analyses using indicators of children’s mental health from large population-based surveys.

She is passionate about inspiring other students to pursue a career in epidemiology or statistics and spends her free time as a mentor for epidemiology students at Emory University, as a SAS tutor, and as a member at large for the CDC employee association of Emory Alumni. Her favorite probability distribution is Poisson.

Michelle Livings

Michelle Livings, winner of the Lingzi Lu Memorial Award, is the surveillance biostatistician at the Southern Nevada Health District. She works primarily in the Office of Epidemiology and Disease Surveillance, compiling reportable disease statistics for Clark County, Nevada, and refining a moving average control process to detect infectious disease outbreaks. She additionally provides statistical support to other offices within the health district and serves as the statistical consultant to the Data & Systems Improvement Working Group of the Southern Nevada Homeless Continuum of Care.

Livings is also an adjunct professor of psychology at Nevada State College, teaching introductory statistics and research methods. She graduated from Georgia State University School of Public Health in December 2017 with a Master of Public Health (biostatistics concentration) degree. Her research interests include multilevel modeling with health and education data, probability sampling methods, and disease modeling and forecasting.