Mathematics & Statistics

On June 2, the Class of 2017 received their diploma. Two of them received the University Medal. This medal is awarded to the best student in each program offered at Dalhousie. 

Molly Hayes

Molly Hayes is the winner of the University Medal in Statistics. She is a combined Statistics and NeuroScience Honours student. She did her Honours research with Hong Gu and Morgan Langille (Pharmacology). Their research uses statistical methods to improve our understanding of the structure and function of microbial communities in the gut. Molly has been accepted into the graduate program at Dalhousie, where she will continue working with Drs. Gu and Langille.

She has received no less than three scholarships to support her grad studies: one from the federal granting agency NSERC, a Nova Scotia Graduate Scholarship, and a grant from the Nova Scotia Health Foundation. Molly is also interested in Education and Bio-Ethics. She will present a paper, on the way that first-year students approach information-seeking and academic writing, at the annual conference of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. 

Shael Brown

Shael Brown is the winner of the Sir William Young Gold Medal, which is the university medal in Mathematics. For his honours research, Shael worked with Dorette Pronk on a mathematical system to classify and study computer programs used in data analysis. Shael also worked independently on an idea that involves applying the algorithm that has been used to rank Web pages in search engines to the ranking of sports players. He presented this paper at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in March. Shael will start graduate studies in Mathematics at McGill university, where he has been accepted with full funding. 

More news about our graduates and prize winners, and about our department's year in review, can be found in the Chase report.