ASA members at DataFest ASU (from left): John Stufken (ASU), Derek Sonderegger (NAU), Rodney Jee (USAA), Anne Hansen (Tuft and Needle), Jennifer Broatch (ASU/West), and Yongzhao Peng (MAG)

The Arizona Chapter completed its second annual ASA DataFest at Arizona State University/Tempe March 24. The event attracted 56 student online registrations, with 45 showing up at check-in.

A notable statistic was that 30% of the registrations were for freshmen, tied with seniors for largest class year. Last year’s DataFest had a comparable number of registrations but only two freshmen.

Early on, there were questions as to whether the freshmen would be totally overwhelmed. As the data hackathon progressed through two nights, a few teams were seen to lose confidence in their results, which no doubt contributed to a high attrition rate for this year. By Sunday morning, only 31 students on nine teams showed up to present to the panel of judges.

Despite the short amount of time given for analysis, the fact that no information about the data was released prior to the unveiling Friday night, and the undergraduate level of all students, all four winning teams employed some form of regression modeling in deriving their results and conclusions.

As to what happened to the freshmen, one of the winning teams included four freshmen and one sophomore—rookies to watch out for in future DataFests!

The school of mathematical and statistical sciences was again the host organization and provided the facilities and event coordination. Rodney Jee, current chapter president, was the ASA contact and coordinator for industry partners. Discover Financial Services and USAA were platinum corporate sponsors, providing financial support and volunteers for the event. Participating ASA members included John Stufken, Derek Sonderegger, Rodney Jee, Anne Hansen, Jennifer Broatch, and Yongzhao Peng.