Congratulations May 2008 Graduates! - Department of Statistics - Purdue University Skip to main content

Congratulations May 2008 Graduates!

05-07-2008

Alan Saunders
Alan Saunders, May 2008 M.S. Graduate

The Department of Statistics would like to congratulate all of our May 2008 graduates. On May 10, 2008, Purdue University and the Department of Statistics awarded degrees to the following people:

Ph.D. Graduates (Advisor) Dissertation Title

  • Ms. Hui Chen (William S. Cleveland, Bowei Xi) "Voice Over the Internet: Statistical Properties and Quality of Service"

  • Ms. Jianying Zhang (William S. Cleveland) "Algorithm-based Statistical Modeling with Application to Multi-Sensor Tracking Data with Missing Values"

M.S. Graduates

  • Mr. Hao Jiang

  • Mr. Eduard Kolberg

  • Mr. Wei Li

  • Ms. Yanzhu Lin

  • Ms. Dan Mu

  • Mr. Kamesh Loganathan Puther

  • Mr. Alan Saunders

  • Ms. Ningying Wu

  • Ms. Danni Yu

  • Mr. Jianchun Zhang

  • Mr. Yang Zhao

Graduate Certificates

  • Ms. Zhuowei Huang

  • Ms. Svetlana O. Stepchenkova

  • Ms. Sujin Yang

  • Ms. Yuan Yang

Undergraduates in Statistics

  • Mr. Faiz Zaidan Ali

  • Ms. Jamie Lynn Anderson

  • Ms. Sarah Mary Bank

  • Ms. Trisha Bhagat

  • Ms. Amanda Christine Brown

  • Mr. Jason Allen Clarkson

  • Mr. Zachary James Fohl

  • Mr. Brandon Scott Funk

  • Ms. Brittany A. Hanners

  • Mr. Markus Philip Horstmeyer

  • Mr. Miljan Jankovic

  • Ms. Julie Marie Kiekenapp

  • Mr. Ryan Justin Kilgore

  • Ms. Shannon Masumi Kiyonaga

  • Mr. Patrick Christopher Ledbetter

  • Mr. Zachary Dean McClish

  • Ms. Heather Lynn McLean

  • Mr. Kenji Nonaka

  • Ms. Raja Noor Zehan Raja Mohd Azmi

  • Ms. Lauren Elizabeth Raper

  • Mr. Joshua Troy Schmidt

  • Mr. Matthew David Seill

  • Ms. Sarah Lyn Shoemaker

  • Mr. John Joseph Steenbergen

  • Mr. Kuok Shin Teo

Actuarial Science Majors

  • Mr. Faiz Zaidan Ali

  • Ms. Jamie Lynn Anderson

  • Ms. Sarah Mary Bank

  • Ms. Trisha Bhagat

  • Ms. Amanda Christine Brown

  • Mr. Jason Allen Clarkson

  • Mr. Zachary James Fohl

  • Mr. Brandon Scott Funk

  • Ms. Brittany A. Hanners

  • Mr. Markus Philip Horstmeyer

  • Mr. Miljan Jankovic

  • Ms. Shannon Masumi Kiyonaga

  • Mr. Patrick Christopher Ledbetter

  • Mr. Zachary Dean McClish

  • Ms. Heather Lynn McLean

  • Mr. Kenji Nonaka

  • Ms. Raja Noor Zehan Raja Mohd Azmi

  • Ms. Lauren Elizabeth Raper

  • Mr. Joshua Troy Schmidt

  • Mr. Matthew David Seill

  • Ms. Sarah Lyn Shoemaker

  • Mr. Kuok Shin Teo

For the academic year 2007-2008, 7 Ph.D. students, 22 M.S. students, 5 Graduate Certificate students, 39 Undergraduate Statistics students and 30 Actuarial Science students received degrees from Purdue University and the Department of Statistics.

Andrew Vizcarra
Andrew Vizcarra

We would like to highlight the achievements of Andrew Vizcarra, a former dual degree student who received his M.S. in Statistics in May 2007 and his Ph.D. in Mathematics in May 2008. Dual degree students pursue two degrees from two different departments simultaneously. Usually this happens when a student pursues a Ph.D. degree in one department and wishes to pursue a master's degree in another department.

Andrew had a substantial professional and academic career before joining the Department's M.S. program in Statistics with Specialization in Computational Finance. He obtained a B.S. in Mathematics in 1996, and a B.S. in Management Information Science in 1997, both from Ateneo de Manila University, Philipines. His first M.S. degree, in Mathematics in May 2000 from the same university, was directed by Professor Jose Marasigan, with a thesis entitled "Forecasting volatility of the USD/PHP exchange rate using the GARCH model". From 1996 to 2002, Andrew was Assistant Instructor and then Instructor at the same university, where he taught, coordinated, designed, and developed courses in mathematics, computer science, and computing.

He will start his new job in June 2008 as Director of Research for the hedge fund D5 Advisors, LLC in Stamford, CT near New York City. His responsibilities will include enhancement and development of the fund's quantitative and statistical methodologies, optimization techniques, and historical databases. According to his advisor Professor Frederi Viens, "Andrew's success in landing [this] terrific quant-finance job in NYC, during the most difficult job market in nearly a decade, goes to the credit of his talent as a scientist, but the multi-faceted training he obtained at Purdue as a statistician and financial engineer, thanks to his Comp Finance MS degree, and as a mathematician, thanks to his Ph.D. work, is what made it possible."

In addition to the above, Andrew's other achievements and positions while at Purdue were many. He was developer and guest lecturer for the C++ and Matlab modules for the course STAT 598W "Design and Analysis of Financial Algorithms" (2004-2008). In his role as team leader for Statistics in the Community (STATCOM 2006-2007), he participated and coordinated the volunteers in this organization which provides free statistical consulting to non-profit organizations throughout the local community. He is a founding member of the Purdue Quantitative Finance Club (PQFC) and served as its treasurer from 2004-2007. He gave contributed and invited research talks at several national and international conferences. He was awarded a Purdue Research Foundation grant in 2007, and was a research assistant under a National Science Foundation grant in 2006-2007. His Ph.D. dissertation is entitled "Regularity of Sub-Gaussian Processes and Other Random Fields". He published three peer-reviewed articles, including one in the prestigious Journal of Functional Analysis, based on his Ph.D. research, in which he generalizes the concept of sub-Gaussian random variables and processes to processes with heavier tails; he introduces new tools based on Malliavin's stochastic calculus of variations, and others based on the Kolmogorov-Talagrand chaining arguments, to help in calculating the expectation and the tail behavior of suprema of highly non-Gaussian random fields.

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

Purdue Department of Statistics, 150 N. University St, West Lafayette, IN 47907

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