The Alvin C Rencher Award is given each year by the BYU Department of Statistics to recognize a faculty member for exemplary undergraduate mentoring. The award is given to honor Dr. Rencher, a former BYU Statistics Professor who was known by all for his concern for individual students. He strived to cultivate a place for students to grow academically and personally. His enthusiasm, scholarly accomplishments, and general promotion of the field of statistics through many notable publications and texts have made him one of the most widely recognized statisticians to come from BYU. His mentoring example and continued search for knowledge make him a fitting role model for student mentoring and namesake for this award.
For the 2019-2020 academic year, the BYU Department of Statistics would like to recognize Dr. Candace Berrett as the recipient of the Alvin C. Rencher Award. With this award, the Department would like to recognize and acknowledge Dr. Berrett’s exemplary example in undergraduate mentoring. Her work in undergraduate mentoring resulted in recognized published research papers in statistical journals, students applying to and being accepted to graduate programs, and student research presentations at conferences. Her mentoring model provides a one-on-one learning environment for undergraduates while promoting their interactions with graduate students. The award this year will sponsor Dr. Berrett’s mentored research group on methods for multi-source signal processing of large, very-noisy data with a $15,000 annual grant for two years. The project was formally funded by the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The project offered 4 student positions on Dr. Berrett’s research team for both undergraduate and graduate students studying Data Science. Students on the team will have the opportunity to study Signal, Noise, Clutter, and Exploratory Analyses on the project. Each student position offers 2-3 semester's worth of work.