CHAPTER NEWS
‘Best Use of Statistics’ Awards
Southern California
Given at Science Fairs
Arlene Ash,
research professor
of medicine and
public health at
Boston University
School of Medicine,
talks about issues
related to risk
From left: Carolyn Oakley, Howard Monroe, Pete Donahoe, and Chris Shang represent the ASA San adjustment in
Antonio Chapter as special award judges at the ExxonMobil Texas Science and Engineering Fair. health services
research during
Regional Winners a seminar for the
On March 8, the San Antonio Chapter sent judges to the 2008 Alamo Regional Science Southern California
and Engineering Fair at St. Mary’s University to select senior division projects that showed
Chapter’s 27th
excellence in the use of statistical methods. Volunteer judges were Howard Monroe, Ken
annual Workshop in
Williams, Pete Donahoe, Carolyn Oakley, Keying Ye, and Norma Ketchum.
Applied Statistics.
The chapter awarded first place and $250 in savings bonds to the team of Steven
Schroeder of Clark High School and Huzeifa Badshah of Health Careers High School for
On March 28, the Southern
their project, titled “Minimizing Lawn Mower Emissions.”
California Chapter held its 27th
Second place and a $150 savings bond were awarded to Kenneth Barshop from St.
annual Workshop in Applied Statistics.
Mary’s Hall Upper School, whose project was titled “AIDS Susceptibility on the Human
Arlene Ash, research professor of med-
Genome: TSG01.”
icine and public health at Boston
Third place and a $100 savings bond were awarded to Navid Leelani of Health Careers
University School of Medicine,
High School for “Combination Height/Weight Ratio.”
gave an informative seminar, titled
State Winners
“The Vital Importance of Adjusting
for Patient Risk: Risk Adjustment
On April 11, volunteer judges were sent to the ExxonMobil Texas Science and Engineering
in Health Services Research.”
Fair 2008 at Henry B. Gonzales Convention Center. Projects in the senior division that
The workshop provided an intro-
showed the best use of statistics were judged by Chris Shang, Pete Donahoe, Carolyn
duction to the major conceptual,
Oakley, Howard Monroe, and Norma Ketchum. The Council of Texas Statisticians pro-
practical, technical, and policy issues
vided the monetary awards.
related to risk adjustment in health
First place and a $250 savings bond went to the team of Steven Schroeder of Clark High
services research. Specific topics cov-
School, San Antonio, and Huzeifa Badshah of Health Careers High School, San Antonio,
ered included the need for risk adjust-
for their project, “Minimizing Lawn Mower Emissions.”
ment, the major dimensions of risk,
Second place and a $150 savings bond went to Vivian Lee from Vista Ridge High
the strengths and limitations of dif-
School, Cedar Park, for her project, “A Study of Varying Harmonic Spectrum Exposure on
ferent data sources for risk adjust-
Students’ Concentration During Spatial Reasoning.”
ment, the use of multivariable models
A tie for third place and a $100 savings bond each went to Neela Thangada from
for risk adjustment, and performance
Keystone High School, San Antonio, for “Identifying Genes Responsible for Resistance
measures for risk adjustment models,
Against Powdery Scab Disease in the Potato” and Stephanie Simcox from McGregor
as well as the use of propensity scores
High School, McGregor, for her project, titled “Effects of Antioxidants in Response to
and instrumental variables as enhance-
Ultraviolet Radiation in Drosophila melanogaster.”
ments to standard modeling.
Both judging efforts were organized by Howard Monroe, San Antonio ASA Chapter
There were more than 50 attend-
judging coordinator.
ees at the event, which was held at
COTS, Short Course Attract Texas Statisticians
California State University, Long
Beach. Attendees were from business,
From March 28–29, the chapter hosted the 2008 Conference of Texas Statisticians
government, and academia, mostly
(COTS) at The University of Texas at San Antonio, downtown campus. A half-day
from the Southern California area.
ASA traveling short course taught by Tim Hesterberg and titled “Bootstrap Methods
Representatives from SAS, JMP, and
and Permutation Tests for Doing and Teaching Statistics” was offered prior to the con-
Salford Systems also were in atten-
ference. During the conference banquet, the 2008 Don Owen Award was presented to
dance. More information about Ash’s
N. Balakrishnan, professor of statistics at McMasters University in Canada.
research may be found at www.bmc.
The conference was organized by Nandini Kannan and her colleagues at The University
org/womenshealth/mentor_ash.html.
of Texas at San Antonio. The next COTS will be hosted by Sam Houston State University
in Huntsville, Texas, in the spring of 2009. n
JUNE 2008 AMSTAT NEWS 47
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