Congratulations August 2005 Graduates!

08-15-2005

From left to right: Mr. Peng Zeng, Mr. Nak-Kyeong Kim, Mr. Chun Han, Ms. Yun Wang,
Professor Jun Xie, Mr. Terry Tiansi Ma, Ms. Wenxuan Zhong, Ms. Jing Cheng, Professor Michael Zhu

The Department of Statistics would like to congratulate all of our August 2005 graduates. On August 6, 2005, Purdue University and the Department of Statistics awarded degrees to the following people:

Ph.D. Graduates (Advisor) Dissertation Title

• Mr. Chun Han (Chong Gu) Non and Semi-Parametric Regression with Correlated Data
• Mr. Bradford Johnson (Thomas M. Sellke) Some Topics in Probability and Statistics
• Mr. Nak-Kyeong Kim (Jun Xie) Bayesian Models and Markov Chain Monte Carlo Methods for Protein Motifs Using Secondary Characteristics
• Ms. Yun Wang (George P. McCabe) Methods for Missing Values in Dichotomous Response Variables
• Mr. Peng Zeng (Michael Zhu) Fourier Methods for Sufficient Dimension Reduction in Regression
• Ms. Wenxuan Zhong (Michael Zhu) Nonparametric Clustering and Model Selection with Application in Bioinformatics

M.S. Graduates

• Ms. Jing Cheng

Graduate Certificates

• Ms. Erin Berger Conder
• Ms. Pinar Gurkas
• Ms. Yan Liu
• Ms. Xiaoli Wen
• Ms. Hong Zhang

Undergraduates in Statistics

• Ms. Hsiao-Fan Tang

Actuarial Science Majors

• Ms. Hsiao-Fan Tang

So far for the year 2005, the Department of Statistics has graduated 9 Ph.D. students, 17 M.S. students, 6 Graduate Certificate students, 20 Undergraduate Statistics students and 16 Actuarial Science students.

We would like to highlight the achievements of Jenni Prior, a December 2004 B.S. graduate in Statistics and Actuarial Science. She comes from Lawrenceville, GA, and entered the Purdue Actuarial Science program in August 2002.

Based on academic performance, she received several scholarships and awards including "Arthur Rosenthal Scholarship" from the Department of Mathematics, and an Actuarial Science award, "Lincoln Scholarship", funded by the Lincoln Financial Group in spring 2004. During the college years, she passed three actuarial exams (Course 1, 2 and 3), worked as a teaching assistant in MA 170, a core course in the Actuarial Science program, and interned at two major insurance companies. She worked at State Farm P&C Insurance Company as an actuarial analyst intern in summer 2003, and at The Hartford Financial Services Group as a P&C actuarial intern.

She is now working as a Senior Actuarial Analyst at The Hartford P&C, Hartford, CT, which is one of the largest investment and insurance companies in the United States. The Hartford provides investment products, life insurance and group and employee benefits, automobile and homeowners insurance, and business insurance.

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