Annual Newletter

USC STAT NEWS

DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA

(http://www.stat.sc.edu/)

December 1999

(803)-777-7800

William J. Padgett, Chairman

E-mail: padgett@stat.sc.edu

Chair's Notes

On behalf of the Statistics faculty and staff, I wish you a joyful holiday season. As the fall semester is winding down, it seems that this has been a blindingly fast year, although a good one for our department. After a rigorous self-study at the end of 1998, last February we had an external panel of distinguished statisticians review the department as part of the College of Science and Mathematics periodic program reviews. This review was quite favorable and resulted in the hiring of a full time instructor in August 1999, as well as the recruitment of another senior-level faculty member for the next academic year. These additions will bring our number of faculty positions to twelve. We also instituted some program changes and are reflecting upon other changes based on the reviewers' suggestions.

We are eagerly awaiting the much anticipated move of the remainder of the faculty and graduate students from the fourth floor of LeConte to new space on the second floor, either late this fall or early in 2000. This will put all faculty and graduate assistants in closer proximity to each other and to the Departmental Office.

We have seen several of you, either at professional meetings or when you have come by the department for a visit. We had an excellent turnout at the "reunion dinner" at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore, as will be reported later in this newsletter. As always, you are invited to drop by to visit your department. We like to stay informed about your activities, so please let us know any news about you or your family. This year we created an "Alumni News" page to the department's Web site shown in the heading, which I hope you will check out. So, please take a few minutes to complete and return the form at the end of the newsletter any time you would like to let us know about promotions, awards, weddings, births, or other happenings. Feel free to e-mail as well; all e-mail addresses are listed at the department's Web site.

The steady growth of the Department continues each year. In particular, the lower division courses continue to grow, now enrolling well over 700 each semester in STAT 110 and 201. The number of undergraduate majors and number of graduate students is steady at around twenty-five and thirty-six, respectively. All graduates entering the job market continue to obtain excellent positions, and the demand for statistics graduates is very high with an excellent outlook for several years to come!

A main goal of our department is to become one of the top programs in the South within the next five years. This is consistent with USC's objective to become a top teaching and research university. The department's reputation comes from our faculty, alumni, former faculty, staff and students. We can advance even further with your help in student recruiting and support in many different ways. You can inform your network of colleagues and any potential students of the excellent opportunities for study in Statistics here at USC. Also, your Educational Foundation contributions go directly to these efforts by allowing us to offer fellowships and awards to outstanding students at all levels. We thank each of you for your immense support!

Joe Padgett, Chair

Faculty and Staff

A full-time Instructor was hired this past August. We were delighted that Tammiee Dickenson accepted this position! Tammiee had received the M.S. degree from this department in December 1996 and had been a Statistician in the USC Institutional Planning and Assessment Office. She also had taught Evening Division courses in the department in the past three years. Her prior experiences included a Master of Mathematics degree, also from USC, and teaching high school mathematics. She is currently working toward a Ph.D. degree in educational measurement. We enthusiastically welcome Tammiee to our department this fall!

Welcome Tammiee!!

Don Edwards continues as the Director of Graduate Studies and Assistant Chair and Walt Piegorsch is the Director of Undergraduate Studies. John Grego and Holmes Finch are still in the StatLab as the Director and Manager, respectively. Holmes enjoys teaching so much that he has been teaching an 8 a.m. section of STAT 201 for the past two years! He still takes time out to drive his new yellow VW Beetle!! Jim Lynch is continuing as the Director of the Center for Reliability and Quality Sciences, offering short courses and consultations to industrial, business and government personnel.

In the Departmental Office, Debra Williams continues as Business/Office Manager and Anita Wood is the Student Services Coordinator and general Administrative Assistant. We also have two work-study office assistants this year, Olivia McElveen and Willia Robinson.

Visiting Scholars

For the past year, Dr. Honggie Kim has been a visiting scholar. Honggie received the M.S. degree from our program in 1984 and his Ph.D. in statistics at Wisconsin. For the past eleven years he has been a faculty member at Chungnam National University in Korea and will return there in mid-December. He taught classes during the summer and this fall.

Lorenzo Pascual was also a visiting scholar in the department during September. Lorenzo is from the Universidad de San Carlos III, Spain, and had visited us for three months during 1998. He and Lori Thombs collaborated on time series problems during these visits.

COSM Lecturer

The Department of Statistics was selected to host the 5th Annual College of Science and Mathematics Lecture. We were honored to have Professor Bradley Efron accept our invitation as the College Lecturer for 1999. Dr. Efron is Professor of Statistics and Max Stein Professor of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. His lecture on April 22 was held to a full house in the Bouknight Auditorium in the Jones Physical Sciences Center. His lecture on "Shakespeare and the Case of the Suspicious Statisticians" was an interesting analysis of an unknown poem discovered in recent years which had been attributed to William Shakespeare.

Awards

Since 1994 the College of Science and Mathematics (COSM) has awarded a senior year scholarship to an outstanding statistics major. The statistics majors receiving the scholarship in the past five years were Scott Sheridan (1994-95), Anne McNair (1995-96), James Watts (1996-97), Michele Nichols (1997-98), and Megan Meece (1998-99). For 1999-2000, Sharon Dziuba is the recipient of the COSM scholarship.

The 1999 recipient of the Stephen D. Durham Award for Outstanding Performance as a Statistics Major was Megan Meece. She also received the department's Mu Sigma Rho Award in 1998 for her outstanding academic record with a double major in Mathematics. The 1999 Mu Sigma Rho Award was presented to Wilson T. Shealy. Mu Sigma Rho is the national Statistics Honor Society and the award is for outstanding academic performance.

Megan Meece

Our incoming graduate students this fall fared very well in fellowship awards. The W. J. Padgett Graduate Fellowship for 1999-2000 was awarded to Megan Meece, a first-year graduate student this fall. USC Graduate School Fellowships were awarded to Brandon Julio and Phil Yates, while College of Science and Mathematics Fellowships were obtained by Ryan Fescina, Megan Meece and Tiantian Qin.

At the University's Graduate Student Awards luncheon our 1999 Outstanding Graduate Student Award was presented to James Surles. James also was presented a USC Graduate School Outstanding Graduate Student Award, the Sigma Xi Research Award, and a Dissertation Fellowship. A Dissertation Fellowship was also awarded to Eleanne Solorzano. The Outstanding First Year Graduate Student Award went to Daniela Nitcheva. The 1999 Departmental Outstanding Graduate Assistant Awards were given at the spring picnic to Obaid Al-Saidy, Michele Nichols, Susan Simmons, and Kelly Scritchfield.

Faculty receiving awards this year were: Don Edwards, Distinguished Achievement Medal from the ASA Section on Statistics and the Environment; Huynh Huynh, Adjunct Professor from Education, the USC Educational Foundation Research Award in the Professional Schools; and Joe Padgett, the Carolina Trustees Professor Award.

1999 Graduates

Two students received the Ph.D. degree in August, Eleanne Solorzano and James Surles. Eleanne is now Assistant Professor in Decision Sciences at the University of New Hampshire, and James is Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University. Congratulations, Eleanne and James!

In addition, M.S. degrees were awarded to Kim Adams, Will Bradley, Sarah Thomas Crawford, Michael Dowd, Grimaldo Febres, Kelly Scritchfield, and Craig Wheatley. M.I.S. degrees went to Mary Alice Barth and Devaris Davis. Amerine Dizon, Dudley Jackson, Megan Meece, Joe Morris, and Wilson Shealy received bachelor's degrees in December 1998 and May 1999.

Reunion Dinner in Baltimore!

At the Annual Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore in August, we had a well-attended "reunion dinner" on Monday evening, August 9, at Amicci's Restaurant in Little Italy! Approximately thirty-six former faculty, alumni, and seven of the current faculty and staff who were in Baltimore attended. Everyone had a great time meeting each other and reminiscing. Beth Walters (M.S. 1997) who teaches at Loyola College in Baltimore did an outstanding job planning the dinner. Thank you, Beth! Next year in Indianapolis, Wanzhu Tu has volunteered to arrange the get-together. We look forward to a record large group there!!

Reunion Dinner Group at the JSM in Baltimore.

Enjoying Dinner at Amicci's!

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Stat Club and Mu Sigma Rho

The Statistics Club and Mu Sigma Rho Chapter had a great year! In addition to regular meetings and picnics, they have traveled to meetings of the S.C. Chapter of ASA in Charleston and went to the Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore, fielding a team for College Bowl competition. The Stat Club also has several outdoors activities each year (reflecting advisor John Grego's interest!), including hikes and camping trips.

College Bowl Team Travels to Baltimore.

A Statistics Club Hiking Group.

A very special speaker last spring was Karin Thomas McCullough (BS 89, MS 91) who works in quality assurance and ISO 9000 at Albany International in St. Stephens, South Carolina. It is interesting that Karin's younger sister, Sarah Thomas Crawford followed as a statistics major (BS 1996) and completed the M.S. degree in May 1999! It is good to keep Statistics in the family!!

Another activity of the Stat Club is to develop a display "booth" for the USC Showcase, held on the Horseshoe in April each year. The members entertain visitors with games, such as a simulated "Let's Make a Deal," and with probability illustrations such as the distribution of results when tossing dice.

AP Statistics Teacher Institute

The Department offered an Advanced Placement Teacher Institute in July. The Institute offered training to secondary school teachers for AP Statistics. This was the second year that the AP Statistics Institute was taught at USC, supported by a grant from the S. C. Department of Education to Lori Thombs, assisted by Todd Ogden. Twenty-three teachers from around the state participated in the three-week course to gain credentials for teaching AP Stat. This is an important contribution to the field since the number of high school students taking the AP Statistics test in the past three years has increased dramatically. More than 22,000 students nationwide took the test last spring!

Statistical Laboratory Activities

The StatLab has enjoyed a high level of funded projects over the past year. The projects include participation in failure analysis of helicopters for the S.C. Air National Guard/Department of Defense (John Grego and Jim Lynch), an extensive "seat belt use" survey for the S.C. Department of Public Safety (Holmes Finch), projects for the S. C. Department of Natural Resources, and work for several other companies and agencies. The Lab also continues to work with the S.C. Alliance for Minority Participation, providing statistical support on retention and tracking minority students in science and engineering in the participating colleges and universities in South Carolina. These projects continue to provide valuable experience for the student research assistants!

Other Faculty News and Activities

All of our faculty are very busy with professional activities, instructional activities, and statistical research. The following are exciting examples:

John Spurrier, Don Edwards, and Lori Thombs produced a new edition of their laboratory textbook for elementary statistics published by Whittier Publications. John also published his book for use in a statistics capstone course. Web West and Todd Ogden provided the statistical software for an electronic textbook on statistical methods which is to appear soon. They also continued development of the "WEBSTAT" computing package which provides statistical computing via the Internet. This package was incorporated into STAT 110 this fall for its computational component, allowing students to do statistical computing from their dormitory rooms or wherever they have access to the World Wide Web.

Walt Piegorsch and Web West continued work in environmental statistics supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Jim Lynch and Joe Padgett obtained another grant from the National Science Foundation to continue work on reliability of complex systems. Edwards and Spurrier are working on methodology for assessing performance standards for higher education institutions in South Carolina with a grant from the S.C. Commission on Higher Education.

Six faculty members continue to serve on the editorial boards of several statistical journals. Faculty regularly referee manuscripts and papers for publication and review grant proposals for national agencies.

Don Edwards, John Grego and Jim Lynch continued to teach the short course on "Design of Experiments" to business and industry personnel this year with a relatively large enrollment.

Alumni News

Kim Adams, M.S. 1999, has begun work as a Statistician with the South Carolina Department of Social Services in Columbia.

Madeline Boyle-Whitesel, M.S. 1995, had a baby boy. She and her husband, Carl, live in the Charlotte area.

Will Bradley, M.S. 1999, and Kelly Scritchfield, M.S. 1999, were married in June. They live in Westerville, Ohio, where Kelly is a doctoral student in education at the Ohio State University and Will teaches at Technology Education College in Columbus, OH.

Kenny Brown, B.S. 1994, has accepted a new position as Senior Statistician at Georgia Medical Care Foundation, Inc., and now lives in Duluth, Georgia. He is working to complete the Master of Industrial Statistics degree at USC this year and was married on November 20.

Sarah Thomas Crawford, B.S. 1996, M.S. 1999, has accepted a position in the Office of Research and Statistics with the South Carolina Budget and Control Board in Columbia.

Jesse Cunningham, M.S. 1997, now works in Indianapolis, Indiana, as a Statistician at Medical Policy Health Care Excel, Inc.

Amerine Dizon, B.S. 1998, lives in Arlington, VA, and is a Survey Statistician in the Methods, Research & Quality Assurance Branch of the Foreign Trade Division, U.S. Bureau of the Census, in Suitland, MD. Her work involves ensuring the accuracy of the country's import and export data.

Jeffrey Freyer, B.S. 1995, received an M.S. degree in Statistics at the University of Tennessee in 1997 and is a Manager at AT&T Solutions, living in Madison, New Jersey.

Dudley Jackson, B.S. 1998, is a Statistician in the Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism in Columbia. Dudley's supervisor is Julie Flowers, M.S. 1984.

Shiow-Jen Lee, Ph.D. 1993, received a Teaching Incentive Program Award for both undergraduate and graduate-level teaching at the University of West Florida, Pensacola, where she is a faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Also, she was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the Fall 1999. She will be going to Washington in the spring to work for the Food and Drug Administration.

James Lewis, M.S. 1994, now works for the S. C. Department of Social Services and lives in Columbia. He formerly was a high school teacher in Lugoff, SC.

Yuhlong Lio, Ph.D. 1987, is Full Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of South Dakota. His daughter has been selected as the 1999 Homecoming Queen.

Mindy McCann, Ph.D. 1994, has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Statistics at Oklahoma State University.

Ann McNair, B.S. 1996, is now an Assistant Actuary at Companion Property and Casualty Insurance in Columbia. Her daughter, Lauren, won the Statistics Award for the Region II Science Fair in both 1998 and 1999!

Douglas A. McTeer, M.S. 1975, was appointed as Senior Education Advisor by South Carolina's new Governor, Jim Hodges, in January 1999. Doug was a member of the S.C. House of Representatives for eighteen years until 1996.

Aparna (Sengupta) Merchant, M.S. 1994, Ph.D. 1997, has accepted a position as a research statistician at Bristol-Myers Squibb, New Jersey.

Joe Morris, B.S. 1998, is a Quality Assurance Engineer at Xionics Document Technologies in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Scott Nix, B.S. 1995, now works at Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is Senior Quality Assurance Specialist. He completed a master's degree in statistics at the University of Tennessee in 1997.

Jason Owen, M.S. 1995, Ph.D. 1997, and wife, Carla, had their first child, Stephen Headrick Owen, on Monday, March 8, 1999. Jason is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of New Hampshire, Durham.

Richard A. Phillips, B.S. 1983, has joined Quality Systems Registrars, Inc., in Herndon, Virginia, as its Deputy Director of Evaluations. He is an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer and Certified Quality Auditor and served on the 1998 Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

Rodney O. Phillips, B.S. 1994, is now Information Systems Coordinator at the U.S. Postal Service Distribution Center in Columbia, South Carolina.

John Rodermund, B.S. 1988, has taken a position as Director of Clinical Programming at Covance Clinical and Periapproval Services, Inc., in Princeton, NJ, a company specializing in drug development. John also completed an M.S. degree in Information Systems at Seton Hall University in 1998. His wife Vilinda (Son) Rodermund, B.S. 1990, was recently promoted to Clinical Data Coordinator at Schering-Plough Research Institute in Kenilworth, NJ, in the cardiovascular therapeutic area supporting all clinical data management activities related to clinical trials. The Rodermunds still live in Glen Gardner, NJ, with their six-year-old daughter, Melissa.

Eleanne Solorzano, Ph.D. 1999, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Decision Sciences, University of New Hampshire, Durham.

James Surles, M.S. 1997, Ph.D. 1999, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Texas Tech University. He was married on July 10, 1999.

Bee Johnson Towler, M.S. 1982, and former StatLab Manager, has moved back to South Carolina after many years in the Washington, DC, area. She now lives in Greer, SC.

Wanzhu Tu, Ph.D. 1997, has accepted a faculty position at the Indiana University School of Medicine where he has had a post-doctoral appointment since August 1997. He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine.

Craig Wheatley, M.S. 1999, has accepted a position as a statistician in the Assessment, Research and Planning Department at Midlands Technical College in Columbia, South Carolina.

Cypreanna Winters, B.S. 1997, has been promoted to Head of the Household Section in the Department of Statistics of the Bahamas, responsible for producing unemployment rate and total employed and unemployed labor force, among other statistics for the government. She lives in Nassau.

Gaudencio Zurita, M.S. 1982, is a Principal Professor of Statistics at ESPOL in Ecuador and head of the Section of Statistics in the Department of Mathematics. He was elected President of the National Academy of Science and is a member of the Board of the National Foundation for Development of Science in Ecuador. In 1988-92, Zurita was the Director of the Ecuador National Institute of Statistics and director of the census of housing and population in 1990.

Do You Have News?

We want to hear from you! Please send information regarding job changes, spouse, children, address, awards, travel, etc., to Joe Padgett, Department of Statistics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208 (or padgett@stat.sc.edu). A form is included for your convenience.

We are also interested in learning how your USC education has helped you. In addition, any suggestions you have to improve our programs are welcome. You might be quoted in our brochures!

You Can Participate In Our Continued Development!

As mentioned earlier, we are always looking for good students, and you are a vital part of our recruiting network. Please send names, addresses, and phone numbers of potential students for our undergraduate or graduate programs. Walt Piegorsch, (803) 777-4651, is our Undergraduate Director and Don Edwards, (803) 777-5073, is the Graduate Director. The address is Department of Statistics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208 and they can be reached by e-mail at piegorsc@stat.sc.edu and edwards@stat.sc.edu, respectively.

Contributions can be made to either of two funds for the Department within the USC Educational Foundation. Your gifts can be restricted in any way you specify. Some employers provide a matching gifts program, also.

The Department of Statistics Fund (Account 1A3410) supports annual awards for top undergraduate and graduate students, helps support student receptions, helps provide computer software for student use, and other activities. Major contributions could be used to support undergraduate scholarships or help to establish chaired professorships.

The W. J. Padgett Fellowship Fund (account 1B1593) was established in 1993 and helps us attract outstanding graduate students to the Department by offering supplemental fellowships annually. The fellowships are funded with interest from the account. Thus, contributions to this account will continue to help young statisticians into the future.

Contribution forms for both accounts are enclosed for your convenience.

The Statistics Department Faculty and Staff Wish You a

Happy 1999 Holiday Season!

We Want To Hear From You!

We would like to share information about your accomplishments and activities with your classmates and other graduates. If you have changed jobs, received a promotion or award, earned a new degree, married, traveled, or anything new has happened to you, please let us know. Send this form to W. J. Padgett, Department of Statistics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208 (or e-mail the information to padgett@stat.sc.edu).

Name: ____________________________________ Degree and Year: ______________________

Address: ___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

E-mail:

News of any kind:

Thoughts on how your USC statistics education has helped you. May we quote you in our Departmental brochures?

Suggestions to improve the Department of Statistics:

GIFT FOR THE DEPARTMENT OF STATISTICS

Name ______________________________________ SSN _______________________

Address _______________________________________________________________

City ___________________________________ State _______ Zip ______________

My Total Gift Will Be: $__________

Matching Gift Company ______________________________________

I will make this gift as follows:

___ to be paid monthly quarterly semi-annually annually

Reminders to begin __________________

___ I would like to give securities or other _______________________________

This gift is to be restricted for the use of the Department of Statistics (Account 1A3410).

Check payable to USC Educational Foundation is enclosed.

You may list my name in the Report of Private Giving; otherwise, treat this gift as anonymous.

You can double your gift if you or a member of your family is employed with a company having a "Matching Gift Program." Please enclose the company's matching gift form available from your personnel office.

RETURN TO: Development Office, University of South Carolina, Byrnes 6th, Columbia, SC 29208

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GIFT FOR "W. J. Padgett Fellowship Fund"