Congratulations May 2007 Graduates!

Professor Rebecca Doerge, Ph.D. Graduate Nilupa Gunaratna, Professor George McCabe Pictured clockwise from upper left: Andrea Rau (M.S.), Nilupa Gunaratna (Ph.D.),
Professor and Associate Dean George McCabe, Amy Watkins (M.S.), Kyunga
Kim (Ph.D.), and Professor Rebecca W. Doerge

The Department of Statistics would like to congratulate all of our May 2007 graduates. On May 12, 2007, Purdue University and the Department of Statistics awarded degrees to the following people:

Ph.D. Graduates (Advisor) Dissertation Title M.S. Graduates Graduate Certificates Undergraduates in Statistics Actuarial Science Majors For the academic year 2006-2007, 8 Ph.D. students, 32 M.S. students, 2 Graduate Certificate students, 43 Undergraduate Statistics students and 30 Actuarial Science students received degrees from the Department of Statistics.

We would like to highlight the achievements of one of the Department's M.S. graduates, Amy Watkins.
Amy WatkinsAmy Watkins
Amy received her undergraduate B.S. degree in Mathematics and Statistics from Miami University in May 2005. In August 2005, she started her Masters degree in Applied Statistics at Purdue specializing in bioinformatics. At Purdue, she was involved with Statistics in the Community (STATCOM), a volunteer organization that provides free statistical consulting to non-profit agencies throughout the local community. Amy was also involved in the STATCOM Outreach project aimed at helping other universities start up STATCOM programs of their own. During her time at Purdue, Amy worked as a STAT 113 recitation instructor, a consultant for the Statistical Consulting Service, and a STAT 225 instructor.

After graduation, Amy will be moving to Memphis, Tennessee to work at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital as a statistical analyst in the Biostatistics department. St. Jude is one of the leading treatment and research centers for childhood diseases. St. Jude is also well known for their policy on accepting children for treatment without regard to the family's ability to pay. Amy will work with a team of doctors and other statistician to develop clinical trials and analyze data from these trials. In addition, she will be using her background in bioinformatics to analyze data from genetic studies to better understand how genes affect childhood diseases.

Best wishes to all of our graduates. We look forward to hearing from you!