News

---

SUMMER 2006

Dr. Jackie Miller receives MERLOT Volunteer of the Year Award

The MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching) Volunteer of the Year Award recognizes volunteers who serve as peer reviewers, faculty developers, and advocates for MERLOT. Read the press release

Statistical Consulting Services analysis featured in The Columbus Dispatch

The Department of Statistics' Statistical Consulting Service analyzed automobile crash data for the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The analysis led to creation of a computer model that helps predict future automobile crashes. Read the full article

---

WINTER 2006

Dr. Cressie's Research is Featured on WCBE

Media publicity of software for processing massive datasets obtained from satellites: Radio interview of Noel Cressie aired on WCBE 90.5 FM, Columbus, 12/13/05
Listen here

---

SPRING 2005

United States Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS)

The first United States Conference on Teaching Statistics (USCOTS) will be held at Ohio State on May 19-21, 2005 at the Blackwell Hotel/Conference Center. This national level conference is hosted by CAUSE, the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education; Dennis Pearl is CAUSE director, Deb Rumsey is the USCOTS Program Chair, and Jackie Miller is Co-Chair. Approximately 300 participants from all over the world will attend USCOTS, whose target audience is undergraduate statistics teachers from all disciplines and institutions. USCOTS is sponsored in part by the OSU Department of Statistics and the College of Math and Physical Sciences.

Hayes Research Forum

The Department of Statistics is proud that five of our graduate students were selected to represent the Department at the Hayes Research Forum on Saturday, April 16, 2005.

• Jesse Frey: "Internationally Representative Sampling for Estimating a Population Mean"

• Jessica Kohlschmidt: "Ranked Set Sampling: Allocation of Sample Units to Each Judgment Order Statistics"

• Babis Papachristou: "Interval Estimation of Disease Loci – Development and Applications of a New Linkage Method"

• Chris Sroka: "Ranked Ste Sampling: A Method for Improving Estimates Obtained from a Stratified Simple Random Sample"

• Haiyan Xu: "Using the Partitioning Principle to Control Generalized Familywise Error Rate"

Chris Sroka received the first-place finish in the Hayes Research Forum. Congratulations!

Jesse Frey, Babis Papachristou, Haiyan Xu, Jessica Kohlschmidt, and Chris Sroka

---

FALL 2004

Understanding the Flow Mechanism in Ice Streams and Glaciers

Dr. Mark Berliner and Dr. Noel Cressie are involved in a collaborative research effort with Ohio State's Byrd Polar Research Center and Department of Geological Sciences. Three RAs from Statistics, Eric Lam, Yongku Kim, and Rajib Paul, are also participating in the project.

Bayesian Analysis of Response Time Data

Professor Trisha Van Zandt of the of OSU Psychology Departemnt and Dr. Mario Peruggia of the Statistics Department are developing accurate Bayesian models and computational methods for response time analysis.

MBI Year to Focus on Genomics, Proteomics, and Bioinformatics

Under the direction of Avner Friedman, the Mathematical Bioscience Institute (MBI) has just completed its successful emphasis year in cellular processes and is looking forward to an exciting year in 2004-2005 that focuses in genomics , proteomics, and bioinformatics.

Undergraduate Statistics Efforts Aim to Increse Student Confidence Beyond 99.7%

With plans to move ahead in developing courses for a statistics minor, and eventually a statistics major, the department is looking forward to many exciting new developments on the undergraduate program in the near future. Jackie Miller and Deb Rumsey will be leading these efforts as the new Department Statistics Education Specialists.

Statistical Consulting Service Revamped

The Department of Statistics re-opened the Statistical Consulting Services (SCS) last October under the guidance of Dr. Tom Bishop, Director, and Ms. Jeni Squiric, operations manager. the SCS mission is to provide professional statistical consulting support to students and faculty in the area of: design of experiments, survey analysis, statistical modeling, data analysis, and database development.

Please refer to Newsletter 2004 for depth details.

---

FALL 2003

The Summer 2003 Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program ended with the participants (in the photo from left ro right, top to bottom) doing presentations of their work:

• Jason Rogowski with Professor Nagaraja: "Monitoring Nerve Axon Regeneration"

• Maria Salotti with Professor Peruggia: "Outliers in Response Time Data"

• Abigail Scott with Professor Hsu: "Selecting Housekeeping Genes for Normalization"

• Elizabeth Koehler with Professor Santner: "The Effect of Dopamine Receptor Agonists and Antagonist Drugs on Honeybee Locomotary Behavior"

• Leon Buck with Professor Berliner: "Statistical Inference for Glacial Beds"

• Stephanie Jones with Professor Craigmile: "Predicting Distortion Products in Healthy Females: A Robustness Study"

• Tiffany Swasta with Professor Goel: "Prediction of Calcium Needs for Bone Mass Growth Among Young Females"

• Scott Mollan with Professor Stasny: "The Effects of Terrorism on Homeowners and Home Related Decisions"

The REU Program provides outstanding undergraduates an opportunity to do collaborative research mentored by a faculty member. Two graduates, Jessica Kohlschmidt and Cheryl Niermann (not pictured) provided coordination and support for the participants.

Past REU students have both returned to out Department to enter into the doctoral program, and have been accepted to other top graduate programs.