For the first time, the Best Capstone Student Award ended in a tie, with two winners, Theresa Devasia and Joshua Lukemire, sharing the 2015 award (and splitting the $500 cash prize). With 32 (mostly highly motivated) students enrolled in this year’s Capstone (STAT 5010-5020) Course, it was not easy to select a ‘best’ student, and even selecting two co-winners was quite difficult. Theresa Devasia is a 3rd-year BS/MS Statistics major from Lilburn, GA. She somewhat stumbled into the field of Statistics from some work in Biostatistics that she performed in high school while working at Emory University’s Winship Cancer Center. Theresa was recently featured in UGA’s Columns, with Prof. Andreas Handel of UGA’s Biostatistics and Epidemiology Department, on the distribution of the length of time of stomach noroviruses. Following the completion of her BS/MS degrees, she plans to pursue a Ph.D. in Biostatistics. Joshua Lukemire is a 4th-year BS student from Warner Robbins, GA. After two years at Macon State University, Joshua transferred to UGA, where he became a dual-degree Psychology/Statistics major. He was a participant in the Summer 2014 CURO program, working with Prof. Larry Sweet of Psychology on techniques to remove fMRI variability in older adults with cardiovascular disease, and presented his results recently in CURO’s Spring 2015 Conference. Upon graduation this Spring, Josh plans to enter the Ph.D. program in Biostatistics at Emory University beginning this Fall, with particular emphasis on fMRI research. Congratulations to these impressive students! Type of News/Audience: Departmental
