Professional Projects — Matt Carlton
Several professional projects kept me busy last year. For a start, I helped coordinate and analyze the data for Cal Poly’s Freshman Success Program (FSP), which we designed three years ago. It helps new students who are put on academic probation in their first quarter. Year after year, our research shows that FSP benefits these freshmen in both academic and non-academic ways. Statistics majors Huey Dodson, Tempus Fugitt and Ryan Allison helped analyze and report on the data.
I supervised two senior projects this year. Diana Shealy completed nearly two years’ work with the Biological Sciences Department in their efforts to implement a cost-effective alternative to DNA testing for identifying sources of E. coli contamination. Diana designed several experiments for the project team, analyzed their data and proposed methods for marking a “threshold” between matches and non-matches among unidentified E. coli strains. My other senior project advisee, Tyler Bramhall, used an arsenal of probability techniques and a healthy dose of simulation to identify winning strategies in the River Crossing Game.
In August 2011, I was invited to speak on teaching probability at the undergraduate level at the 58th World Statistics Congress in Dublin, Ireland. (The trip also gave me a chance to visit Guinness Brewery and admire the various recognitions they give to legendary statistician William Sealy Gosset!) In the talk, I described our Introduction to Probability Models course, which statistics majors take at the end of sophomore year. One of the ongoing challenges of this course is finding a textbook that covers the necessary topics at a suitable mathematical level for college sophomores. To solve this problem, Professor Emeritus Jay Devore and I have embarked on a new writing project. By 2014 we hope to have an applied probability text appropriate for lower-level college undergraduates. The book could be used in both STAT 325 and 350.
