2008 Biostatistics Summer Initiative

Participant Presentations and Feedback

As a part of the BSI, participants look are given a list of potential projects and choose the one that looks the most interesting to them.  They work as a biostatistician on the project and give a presentation on their findings at the end of the summer program.

The 2008 participants' presentations are listed below along with their comments about the program.

Maria Antillón - Spatio-Temporal Modeling of Nitrate Levels in Iowa Municipal Drinking Water Supplies

“The BSI was a great learning experience. I strengthened my skills in statistics and became acquainted with the way that statistics is applied to medical and public health research. At the same time, I learned about how I should prepare to apply to a graduate program in biostatistics, and what I should look for in a school to benefit most from my graduate studies. Now I can return to school not only sharper in hypothesis testing or running a regression in R, but with a little more direction as I consider my future.”
~Marina Antillón

Tenecia Harris - Time-Series Modeling in Driving Studies

"This summer, I had the opportunity to meet wonderful people, bond with a department, and occupy my days with things other than reality television.  I felt well taken care of and at home even through a natural disaster.  I had the time of my life. I recommend this program to anyone looking for a fun learning experience."

Simone Moore - Cochlear Implant Study

"I thoroughly enjoyed my experience at the Biostatics Summer Initiative! I had the opportunity to work with the wonderful faculty members and grad students of U of Iowa's Biostat Department. My instructor Dr. Zamba made sure that everyone understood the material we learned and encouraged class participation. Our TA Yu Hui was great! She helped us learn how to use R, a computing software, and reinforced the lessons of the day. I couldn't have picked a better mentor!  Dr. Oleson was very patient and took the time to explain anything I didn't understand. For my project, I had the opportunity to help Dr. Oleson analyze data from a clinical trial being carried out at the University of Iowa Hospital. It is great to feel that I actually contributed to understanding the data from that trial. This was an awesome program and I would definitely recommended the BSI to students considering grad school."

Carmen Smith - Determining presence of GB virus type C in HIV positive subjects

"Thank you very much for an awesome summer!"