Meet ASA staff accountant Chance Frye. When he’s not crunching numbers, he’s calling plays as a high school football offensive coordinator.
Virginia
Knashawn H. Morales
Knashawn H. Morales is one of two daughters born and raised in North Carolina to loving and supportive parents. From an early age, she developed an appreciation for science and public health. Having a mother and father who were trained as a chemist and an architectural engineer, respectively, likely influenced her. After earning her doctorate, Morales became a research scientist at the New England Research Institutes. Within two years, she joined the University of Pennsylvania, where she collaborated with investigators on research focusing on mental health services and behavioral modification interventions for asthma, insomnia, weight management, and HIV/STD risk reduction. She enjoys mentoring students and noted, “I am blessed to have had wonderful mentors along my journey and can only hope to pay it forward by being a positive influence for others.”
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.
Adrian Coles
Math and science were always Adrian Coles’s favorite subjects growing up in a socioeconomically disadvantaged community in southern Virginia. After serving nine years in the US Marine Corps, he attended The University of North Carolina to become a high-school math teacher. However, he fell in love with statistics after he took a course his senior year and saw the wide range of real-world problems the discipline helped solve. Eventually, he earned his PhD in statistics from North Carolina State University and became the first African American male to earn the degree from the time-honored department.
Rhonda D. Fitzgerald
Rhonda followed in her father’s footsteps and earned her undergraduate degree in mathematics. After a family friend told her about this ‘new’ field called biostatistics, she propelled her journey forward and became the second African American to complete her PhD in biostatistics from Virginia Commonwealth University. Rhonda has received many awards and accolades as a tenured professor, but she is most proud of the relationships she has formed with her students and the impact she has made on their lives.
Obituary: Steven V. Burke
Steven V. Burke of Monroe, Connecticut, passed away suddenly at age 57 on December 6, 2019.
Obituary: Charles Perry Jr.
Charles R. Perry Jr. died peacefully at home in Fairfax, Virginia, May 8, 2018, at the age of 81.