Featured Alumni

Debbie Huang

While still a student, Debbie Huang (B.S., Statistics, 2013) won two awards at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students held in San Jose, Calif., in November 2012. Students from all over the country made presentations in the areas of math, engineering and physics. Huang received a presentation award and one of only three interdisciplinary awards for her poster on the statistical analysis of cardiovascular disease in women.

Huang conducted her research at the Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh in summer 2012. Analyzing data collected on women with ischemic heart disease, a condition in which plaque builds up in the arteries, Huang assessed survival rates for different groups. Her analysis focused on smokers versus non-smokers.

"This area of research is fairly new," Huang said. Data on heart disease in women has only been collected for about a decade.

According to Huang, the Learn by Doing education she received at Cal Poly gave her an edge when it came to doing real-world research. "I felt very prepared to learn information and techniques I'd never seen before," she said.

Huang is currently a graduate student at UCLA. She is pursuing a master's degree in biostatistics and working as an educational consultant at Mathtopian Preparation Inc. "I got the initial research experience I need to prepare me for grad school, and presenting my results at conferences improved my communication skills each time," Huang said.

Greg Ridgeway

In January, Greg Ridgeway (B.S., Statistics, 1995) was named acting director of the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research and development agency within the U.S. Department of Justice. The NIJ works to improve scientific understanding of crime and justice through studying areas such as which public policies deter crime or how to make DNA evidence faster and cheaper.

Ridgeway earned his doctorate in statistics from the University of Washington, where he was also a lecturer and visiting scholar. In joining NIJ, Ridgeway also enters the Senior Executive Service, the highest leadership position in the federal government's civil service. Members of the Senior Executive Service work in key positions just below top presidential appointees.

The newsletter of the American Statistical Association invited him to respond to questions about his first role at NIJ, deputy director. Shortly thereafter, Ridgeway was named acting director and interviewed by Scientific American

Read the article in Amstat News
Read the article in Scientific American