The program’s infrastructure is managed by graduate students, while faculty members and alumni sponsor the opportunities. Graduate student directors manage the application process, pair applicants with appropriate opportunities, and plan several events throughout the summer.
Chapel Hill
Sean Simpson
Sean Simpson grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and attended majority Black public schools throughout his childhood. Simpson’s parents supplemented his education through programs such as the Richmond Area Program for Minorities in Engineering and Center for Talented Youth. However, it was when he watched a presentation about biostatistics during his junior year at Harvard University that his career path became clear to him. He is now a biostatistics professor at Wake Forest University and was elected an ASA Fellow in 2022—an honor that served as a culmination of his contributions to the field.
Joyee Ghosh
Joyee Ghosh had to choose between taking a statistics or biology course in high school. Because the thought of dissecting frogs terrified her, she chose statistics. Today, she is an associate professor in the department of statistics and actuarial science at the University of Iowa. When students ask her for career advice, she tells them they should follow their heart, work hard, and take things as they come.
North Carolina Chapter Presented Its Annual Awards
The chapter’s Senior Statistician Award was given to Alyson Wilson and Steve Marron on December 6, 2019.
Amy Herring
Amy Herring always asked questions and never said no to an opportunity, even when it involved being a team statistician for her high-school basketball team. Now, she loves to bring research topics into the classroom and is consistently on the lookout for potential statistics scholars to recruit.
Marie Davidian
Having received very theoretical training at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Davidian learned through “trial by fire” how to be an effective applied statistician-collaborator. Her first book, Nonlinear Models for Repeated Measurement Data, co-authored with David Giltinan, is considered a seminal text on nonlinear mixed effects modeling and pharmacokinetic analysis.
On the Street Where You Live
Ingram Olkin talks about his trip to Chapel Hill and the sighting of two street signs names after famous statisticians.