North Carolina State University is growing yet another bumper crop of great undergraduate and graduate statistics students. The initiation banquet for their Alpha Chapter of Mu Sigma Rho the national Honor Society for Statistics) was held on Thursday April 8, 2010 at the Talley Student Center. Eight new undergraduate members and thirty seven new graduate members were inducted into the Mu Sigma Rho Honor Society.

Following some ice-breaker puzzles for each table (organized by Chapter President, Charles Smith), prizes, and a nice dinner, John Sall, Co-Founder and Executive VP of SAS Institute, provided a picturesque history of the origins and development of SAS Institute from its initial six employees to its current 11,000 plus employees and being voted Fortune magazine’s Number 1 place to work in the USA. He also demonstrated how to solve an optimization problem using JMP. Sall was made an honorary member of the NCSU Chapter. In his closing remarks, Sastry Pantula congratulated the new inductees, wished them successes similar to that of SAS, and reminded everyone to vote in the ASA elections and to complete the Census forms. Stu Hunter, a past ASA President and a distinguished alum of NC State, also participated in the ceremonies.

North Carolina State University formally dedicated its new mathematics and
statistics building on Friday, May 1. At a dedication celebration attended by more than
200 faculty, students, friends and alumni, NC State Chancellor James L. Oblinger
announced for the first time that the building will be named SAS Hall, in honor of the
founders of the Cary, North Carolina-based software company.

The 119,000 square-foot building will house state-of-the-art classrooms, computer labs, tutorial centers and meeting and study space for students and faculty from NC State’s mathematics and statistics departments. A partnership with Cisco will improve digital communications for students by providing access to live and on-demand video content from anywhere on campus.

Construction of the $32-million building was made possible by the Higher
Education Bond Referendum passed by North Carolinians in 2000, as well as by gifts
from private donors, including a substantial contribution from SAS. SAS was born out of a research project that began in the NC State Department of Statistics in the early 1970s. Since then, the company has grown into one of the largest software providers in the world. Two of the company’s founders, CEO Jim Goodnight and Executive Vice President John Sall, as well as their spouses remain close partners and staunch supporters of the department and the university.

“At SAS, we believe that it is vital for students in the mathematical and statistical
sciences to learn in an environment that provides state-of-the-art facilities and
instructional technologies,” Sall said. “It’s also critical that they participate in the kind of collaborative initiatives they’ll experience in the work place. That type of environment produces the type of employee and person we want at SAS, and it’s the type we want to produce at NC State. That’s why we decided to make a significant contribution toward ensuring that this building would become a reality.”

“The technology resources in this building will indeed have a very positive impact
on teaching, learning, consulting, and research in our departments,” said Sastry Pantula, the Head of the Department of Statistics at NC State. “I must say, so will the physical layout of the spaces within this beautiful building. A lot of thought has gone into the overall sense of community, and collaboration we wanted these spaces to convey. Our departments take great pride in mentoring, and vertically integrating research and education! Teaching and discovery don’t happen exclusively in the classrooms, or behind a closed office door. These happen in informal chats between a professor and his/her students over a brown bag lunch. They happen when colleagues strike up a conversation about the day’s events over a cup of coffee in the commons. It happens late at nights when undergraduate and graduate students play together in our computer labs- our modern incubators. It happens when our retired faculty, successful alumni, and friends visit us frequently to share their wealth of experiences. We are very grateful to the donors for their support and for their vision, to the taxpayers of North Carolina, to Dean Solomon, and to every single person involved with this masterpiece, from the conception to completion.”

NC State boasts a longstanding tradition of excellence in teaching and research in
statistics. Its Department of Statistics is among the nation’s oldest and most prestigious, having been founded by renowned statistician Gertrude Cox in 1941. The university currently ranks fifth nationally in total R&D expenditures and in competitive federal R&D expenditures in the mathematical and statistical sciences. It also received the Departmental Teaching and Learning Excellence Award at NC State a few years ago.

“NC State’s mathematical and statistical science programs rank among the best in
the nation,” said Daniel Solomon, dean of the university’s College of Physical and
Mathematical Sciences. “We now have a state-of-the-art facility that is worthy of the
stature of our students and faculty.”

The fundamental goals of the Infinite Possibilities Conference are to educate, promote, support and encourage underrepresented minority women in the mathematical and statistical sciences. For two days, students, professors, and government and industry professionals gather to participate in a diverse array of activities, including panel discussions, breakout sessions, research roundtables and more. The structure of IPC creates a spirit of sisterhood and connectedness among all that attend and provides information and resources that enable each participant to succeed in her chosen educational and career path.

The Second Infinite Possibilities Conference was held on the campus of North Carolina State University on November 2-3, 2007. Over 220 women from twenty-two states and the District of Columbia participated in this special event. Attendees’ areas of study not only included mathematics and statistics, but also computer science, epidemiology, environmental science and women’s studies. Enlightening presentations were given by our keynote and invited speakers, Dr. Alicia Carriquiry, Dr. Iris Mack and Dr. Freda Porter. At the closing banquet, all were inspired by the accomplishments of Dr. Sylvia Bozeman, the recipient of the 2007 Dr. Etta Z. Falconer Award for Mentoring and Commitment to Diversity.

A special thank you goes to the individuals whose hard work and dedication made this conference a success. We express our sincere thanks to North Carolina State University, the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI), and Building Diversity in Science for hosting this event. We also extend our deepest gratitude to the following sponsors who provided significant financial support: National Security Agency, North Carolina State University, SAMSI, American Statistical Association, National Science Foundation and Mathematical Association of America.

Proceedings Document

The Infinite Possibilities Conference (IPC) is a national conference that is designed to promote, educate, encourage and support minority women interested in mathematics and statistics. This year in November Building Diversity in Science (BDIS), North Carolina State University (NCSU), and The Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) will proudly host the 2007 Infinite Possibilities Conference, which will take place on the campus of NCSU in Raleigh, North Carolina. This unique and special event will assemble women mathematicians from underrepresented minority groups from all over the country for a 2-day mathematics conference on November 2-3, 2007.

Photo Gallery of Conference Proceedings

The Professor Wen-Hsiung Li is the James Watson Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. He first studied Engineering (BS 1965) and Geophysics (MS 1968) in Taiwan. He then came to the United States to study Applied Mathematics (PhD 1972) at Brown University. In his second summer at Brown University, Professor Masatoshi Nei introduced him to population genetics. After a year of postdoctoral study with Professor James F. Crow at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, he joined the Center for Demographic and Population Genetics at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston in 1973. He moved to the University of Chicago in 1998.

Widely regarded as a leader in the study of the molecular evolution of genes and populations, Professor Li has made seminal contributions related to the rates and patterns of DNA sequence evolution and their application to the molecular clock hypothesis. He showed that the rate at which DNA evolves is strongly influenced by generation time. In addition, he and his collaborators have found important evidence in support of the male-driven evolution hypothesis. He also did groundbreaking work on estimating the times since species shared a most recent common ancestor and he helped to pioneer techniques for the statistical inference of evolutionary relationships from DNA sequence data. His statistical methods are among the most applied in the field. Currently, his research interests include the evolution of regulatory modules and duplicate genes.

Professor Li has published four books, more than 270 papers, and 31 book chapters. He has written both the most highly regarded graduate-level and the most highly regarded undergraduate-level textbooks on molecular evolution. He was elected to the Academia Sinica in Taiwan in 1998, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999, to the National Academy of Sciences in 2003, and as president of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in 2000. In 2003, he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Genetics and Evolution, a highly prestigious honor in sciences and humanities.

The Statistics Department is honored that Professor Li has agreed to come speak at the Cockerham Lecture which will be held November 8, 2007. There will be a small reception beginning at 3:00pm followed by his presentation from 3:30pm-5:00pm at the Convocation Room (2309) at the College of Textiles Building on Centennial Campus. Please come and meet one of the leading experts in this field of study.