Outstanding Mathematics Achievement:

Sarah Katherine Loos & Kasey Collins

Outstanding Statistics Achievement

Sara Armstrong & Sarah Austin

Outstanding Mathematics & Statistics Achievement

Amy Moore

Outstanding Mathematics Research Award

Amy Moore

Outstanding Experiential Learning Award in Statistics

Sarah Austin & Sam Bacon

In addition to the recognition of award winners. Twenty-two new members were inducted into the Mathematics Honor Society, Pi Mu Epsilon, and five new members were inducted into the Statistics Honor Society, Mu Sigma Rho.

Pi Mu Epsilon inductees:

Margaret Cox
Nina Crocco
Danielle DaSilva
Luciana Ferman
Hope Friel
Lucas Hoffses
Morgan Kearns
Gautam Kotwal
Vivian Krause
Grace Middleton
Cade Missimer
Gabriel Nicholas
Mallory Poff
Eden Ralph
Rachel Renfrow
Alexa Roveri
Jacob Stanley
Christopher Young
Madison George
William Tunis
Bruce Vagt
Xu Yan

Mu Sigma Rho inductees:

Dean Kolk
Nicole LaMont
Jeffrey Pinarchik
Tessa Queirolo
Megan White

This semester-long course led by Kirsten Doehler, associate professor of statistics, allowed student teams to work with clients at Hanesbrands, Inc. and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants on data analytics projects. Student team leaders Emily Cooper and Marcel Fahrenholz were additionally mentored by Mark Weaver, assistant professor of statistics, and Laura Taylor, associate professor of statistics.

Student teams presented their reports at each of the companies in early December.  The course will run again in fall 2019.

The conference is held virtually in May of even-numbered years and is sponsored by the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE). This year’s theme was “Data Science For All.” 

Faculty members Lisa Rosenberg, Ryne VanKrevelen, Kirstie Doehler and Laura Taylor gave a virtual poster presentation on “Efficacy of ‘The Islands’-based Projects Compared to Student-Collected Data Projects in Introductory Statistics Courses,” which can be viewed at . 

This presentation marks the initial dissemination of their research study from Spring 2018 in the course STS 110: Introduction to Statistical Reasoning.  This study required students to complete one of the course projects by collecting data from a virtual world known as The Islands and one of the course projects to be completed using data collected by the students with real human subjects or objects. Their research looked at student learning outcomes and perceptions based on the two project approaches.

Clark presented on “Using Mathematica in the Teaching of Calculus-Based Probability.” Taylor and VanKrevelen presented on “Creating Shiny Apps for in-class Activities.” 

Junior statistics major Jacob Crouse presented his poster titled “Comparison of Data Splitting Methods in Statistical Modeling.” The event was attended by students, academics and professional statisticians.

The event was organized by Ameya Benegal ’16 and held in Durham, N.C. on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2017.  

Statistics alumni in attendance were Ted Berkowitz ’13, Ali Miller ’13, Ana Saravia ’14, Ameya Benegal ’16, Eric Goding ’16 and Sydney Lawton ’17.

​The theme of the conference was “Show me the Data” and additionally, the importance of statistics in the emerging field of data science was a main topic of discussion.  This conference was co-sponsored by the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE) and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS).

Metts also attended a 1.5-day pre-conference workshop on “Teaching Introductory Statistics with Simulation-Based Inference” held by pre-eminent statistics educators Beth Chance, Allan Rossman, Todd Swanson and Jill VanderStoep.

The talk was based on a study the pair conducted with Heather Barker, instructor in mathematics, during the Winter 2017 term. The study aimed to incorporate hands-on activities in the MTH 110 course which were extended using simulation methods in the online platform, StatCrunch.  

The presentation focused on a “Cane Toad” activity where a box of 24,000 beads represents a population of Cane Toads, where green beads represented mature, female toads. The goal of the activity is to estimate the proportion of mature, female toads in the population by taking samples.

Students use specialized scoops recreated using a 3D printer from prototypes donated from the Department of Statistics at North Carolina State University to draw random samples of 30 toads. After completing the hands-on process, instructors use an applet in StatCrunch to simulate this process of randomly sampling toads from the population thousands of times to make inferences. 

Two other modified activities were presented in the talk. Evaluation of the effectiveness of these activities in helping students learn statistical concepts is ongoing.

The faculty viewed the conference, which was streaming live, from an on-campus classroom. The conference’s theme was “Changing with Technology.” Faculty participating in this conference learned about recent advances in statistical pedagogical tools, such as RStudio and RMarkdown.

Taylor and Doehler also participated in a virtual poster session and presented their work on “Using Code-Based Statistical Software in an Introductory Statistics Course.” The presentation highlights pedagogical techniques for incorporating the software SAS in theSTS 212/MTH 220: Statistics in Application course. Following the theme of the conference, they made use of the technology Screencast-O-Matic to present their pre-recorded virtual presentation.  

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The paper introduces a new scale to measure faculty attitudes and perceptions related to the statistics discipline. Overall sum scores and sum scores for each of the seven subscales are examined based on numerous demographic characteristics such as academic discipline, position, and type of institution. This research paper is the fifth peer-reviewed publication that Doehler and Taylor have published together.