Chapter Awards

Chapter Awards

The NC ASA Chapter presents awards to statisticians who have advanced statistical science in North Carolina. 

The NC ASA Chapter is pleased to announce five award winners! The 2024 Service Award winners are Dr. Sarah Lotspeich, Dr. Xiaoxia Champon, and Dr. Kristen Foley. The Senior Statistician Award winners are Dr. Walter Ambrosius and Dr. Ralph D'Agostino. Celebrate these impactful statisticians with us!

Dr. Sarah Lotspeich is an Assistant Professor of Statistics at Wake Forest University. Sarah earned her Ph.D. in Biostatistics from Vanderbilt University in 2021 and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2022. Her research tackles challenges in analyzing error-prone observational data, focusing on international HIV cohorts, electronic health records, and health disparities. She also develops methods for statistical modeling with censored covariates, applicable to Huntington’s disease. Sarah has published in peer-reviewed statistical, clinical, and epidemiological journals, and she is the 2023 recipient of the David P. Byar Early Career Award from the ASA Biometrics Section. She enthusiastically mentors student research, co-organizes Florence Nightingale Day at Wake Forest annually, and holds elected positions in the Caucus for Women in Statistics and Data Science and other professional organizations. 

Xiaoxia Champon joined Food and Drug Administration as a mathematical statistician in Nov, 2024. Xiaoxia earned her Ph.D. in Statistics from North Carolina State University in July 2024, where she studied under the guidance of Dr. Ana-Maria Staicu. Her dissertation focused on categorical functional data analysis. As a T32 fellow, she collaborated with Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) researchers on cardiovascular research starting in 2021. During her final year, she also partnered with researchers from the Complex Adaptive Systems Laboratory (CASL) at the University of Central Florida (UCF) on an information diffusion project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Xiaoxia is the recipient of Paige Plagge award in 2022 and William Swallow Award in 2023. 

Dr. Kristen Foley is a Research Statistician with the EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) working with the multidisciplinary group of scientists that develop the Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ) model.  Dr. Foley's research includes development and application of statistical techniques to evaluate output from the numerical model against different types of air quality measurements. She also provides statistical consulting to her fellow team members to help them visualize, analyze, and interpret their data. Dr. Foley has a M.S. degree and a Ph.D. in Statistics from NC State University.

Walter Ambrosius is a Professor in the Department of Biostatistics and Data Science at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.  From 2012 to 2024 he served as Chair of the department.  He earned his AB (Math) and AM (Statistics) from Washington University in St. Louis in 1991 and his PhD (Statistics) from the University of Chicago in 1995.  He spent 6 years as an Assistant and Associate Professor at Indiana University School of Medicine before joining Wake Forest in 2001.  Since joining Wake Forest, he’s worked mostly in data coordinating centers for NIH-funded clinical trials.

Ralph D'Agostino Jr. is currently a professor of Biostatistics and Data Science and serves as the Director of the Clinical Research Management graduate program at Wake Forest University as well as the Director of the Biostatistics Shared Resource for the Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has been at Wake Forest University since 1994 after receiving his Ph.D. in Statistics from Harvard University and currently a fellow of the American Statistical Association. His methodological research interests have been primarily related to the use of propensity scores in research studies and the development and use of predictive models in medical research. Much of his applied work has focused on medical applications in the areas of oncology, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, with a recent emphasis on cardio-oncology examining cardiovascular outcomes on cancer survivors. 

2024 Awards

Service Award
The NC ASA would like to honor three statisticians for their dedication and service to the NC ASA.

Sarah Lotspeich - Sarah is a assistant professor at Wake Forest University.

Xiaoxia Champon - Xiaoxia is a professor of statistics at North Carolina State University.

Kristen Foley - Kristen is a statistician at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency


Senior Statistician Award
NC ASA is proud to honor two Senior Statisticians for their outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of statistics in North Carolina:

Walter T. Ambrosius - Walter is a professor of biostatistical science at Wake Forest University.
Ralph D'Agostino - Walter is a professor of biostatistics and data science at Wake Forest University.

2021 Awards

Service Award
The NC ASA would like to honor the dedication and service of Emily Griffith to the NC ASA. Emily is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Statistics at NC State University and the Director of Data Science Consulting in NC State's Data Science Academy.


Senior Statistician award
NC ASA is proud to honor two Senior Statisticians for their outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of statistics in North Carolina:


Sonia Thomas - Sonia is a senior research statistician at RTI International.
Cynthia Rudin - Cynthia is a professor of computer science, electrical and computer engineering, statistical science, mathematics, and biostatistics & bioinformatics at Duke University.

Dr. Emily Griffith is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Statistics at NC State University and the Director of Data Science Consulting in NC State's Data Science Academy. She has a strong record of collaborative statistical work across a broad range of disciplines, including veterinary medicine, engineering, education, and paleontology. Emily served on the NC ASA Executive Board as Vice President 2 (2017), Vice President (2018), and President (2019) and enjoys continuing to be involved in promoting the profession and practice of statistics across the state of North Carolina through NC ASA.

Dr. Sonia Thomas received her BSPH, MS, and DrPH degrees in Biostatistics from UNC and is a Senior Research Statistician at RTI International.  She is a Data Coordinating Center PI on NIH and non-profit funded clinical trials and is currently involved in the NHLBI CONNECTS COVID 19 clinical trials Administrative Coordinating Center.  She has held past positions as Senior Director of Biostatistics at Quintiles, Inc (now IQVIA); Director of the UNC Collaborative Studies Coordinating Center and Professor of the Practice of Biostatistics at UNC, where she taught leadership for biostatisticians. She joined RTI in 2017 and maintains an Adjunct appointment at UNC. Sonia specializes in collaborative design, implementation, and analysis of clinical trials. Her statistical interests include non-inferiority, adaptive clinical trials, interim analysis, repeated measures analysis, and methods to address missing data caused by early study discontinuation.

Dr. Cynthia Rudin is a professor of computer science, electrical and computer engineering, statistical science, mathematics, and biostatistics & bioinformatics at Duke University. She directs the Interpretable Machine Learning Lab, whose goal is to design predictive models with reasoning processes that are understandable to humans. Her lab applies machine learning in many areas, such as healthcare, criminal justice, and energy reliability. She holds an undergraduate degree from the University at Buffalo, and a PhD from Princeton University. She is the recipient of the 2022 Squirrel AI Award for Artificial Intelligence for the Benefit of Humanity from the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (the "Nobel Prize of AI"). She is a fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and AAAI. Her work has been featured in many news outlets including the NY Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Boston Globe.



2020 Awards

Service Award
The NC ASA would like to honor the dedication and service of Brian Gaines to the NC ASA. Brian is a research statistician developer at SAS.


Senior Statistician award
NC ASA is proud to honor two Senior Statisticians for their outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of statistics in North Carolina:

Gayle Bieler - Gayle is the senior director for the Center for Data Science at RTI International.
Jacqueline Hughes-Oliver - Jackie is a full professor of statistics at North Carolina State University.



2019 Awards

The 2019 NC ASA Awards were announced at our Annual Fall Dinner and were recognized in AmStat News!

2019 NC ASA Senior Statistician Awards
NC ASA is proud to honor two Senior Statisticians for their outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of statistics, particularly for their roles in the development of the subject in North Carolina:
* Alyson Wilson, Professor of Statistics and Principal Investigator for the Laboratory of Analytic Sciences at NCSU
* Steve Marron, Amos Hawley, Professor of Statistics and Operations Research at UNC


2019 North Carolina Chapter Service and Contribution Awards
NC ASA is honored to recognize Fang Chen, Development Director in the Advanced Analytics Division at SAS Institute Inc., for his long-standing support of the NC Chapter.

2019 ASA Award for Outstanding Chapter Service
NC ASA was delighted to present to Elizabeth Mannshardt, Statistician at the US EPA, the ASA Award for Outstanding Chapter Service, for her extraordinary service and leadership as NC ASA president in 2018.


2018 Awards
NC ASA 2018 Award Winners were recognized in AmStat News!

2018 Student Awardees:

NC ASA and AISC Young Researcher Award winners included the following:

  • Yunran Chen and Siyun Yang of Duke University
  • Isabel Gesen* of Elon University
  • Vincent Davis and Shana McDowell* of North Carolina Central University
  • Jesse Clifton, Lin Dong, Sohini Raha, Eric Rose, Lili Wu, and Zekun Xu of North Carolina State University
  • Sean McCabe* and Jonathan William* of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • Julia Haines* of Wake Forest University
  • Qiuyi Wu of SAMSI

*These young researchers are also members of the NC ASA Scholastic Council, an initiative to coordinate activities and disseminate information to North Carolina’s schools, colleges, and universities.

2018 North Carolina Chapter Service and Contribution Awards
NC ASA is honored to recognize two statisticians for their long and outstanding service to the NC Chapter. Awardees will be honored at the AISC Banquet and Awards Ceremony Saturday, Oct 6th.
Awardees announced via the NC ASA Newsletter Summer Edition May 22.

Breda Munoz, RTI - past NC ASA President, Breda remains an active member.  Breda continues to work with the NC ASA Executive Board, organizing events and opportunities for high school statistics students and teachers, providing a vital outreach to an under-served part of North Carolina's statistics community.  Breda also served as a Mentor in NC ASA's first mentoring event this spring - an important role in our service to our young professionals.

Sujit Ghosh, NCSU - past NC ASA President, Sujit remains a very active member, attending many events.  Sujit continues to work with the NC ASA Executive Board via his work as the Core Strategic Team Lead for NC ASA's newly developed Industry Interests Group.  Sujit has worked on the IIG's agenda, spearheading implementation of many ideas and initiatives.  He is actively working to implement an NC ASA survey of members to gauge interests and needs of the community, and has plans to organize events to meet these needs.



2018 NC ASA Senior Statistician Awards at AISC

NC ASA is proud to honor Senior Statisticians for their outstanding contributions to the theory and practice of statistics, particularly for their roles in the development of the subject in North Carolina.

David Banks

David Dickey

Maura Stokes

Duke University

North Carolina State University

SAS

Senior Statistician Awardees will be honored at the AISC Banquet and Awards Ceremony and are featured as AISC Plenary Speakers.



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Past NC ASA Chapter Award recipients

  • Sat Gupta, 2014
  • Richard Smith, 2014
  • Butch Tsiatis, 2014
  • Mike West, 2014
  • Hrishikesh Chakraborty
  • Bob Rodriguez
  • Sastry Pantula
  • Marie Davidian
  • P K Sen
  • Alan Garlfand
  • Jim Chromy
  • Jim Berger
  • Jason Brinkley
  • Malcolm Ross Leadbetter
  • Peter Bloomfield
  • Merlise Clyde
  • Dan Solomon