Every year at SAS Global Forum we honor educators and students for exemplary uses of SAS in teaching, learning and research. Unfortunately, this year’s live event in Washington, DC was cancelled and turned into our first ever virtual SAS Global Forum. While we are disappointed that the honorees did not get the pleasure of attending, networking and showcasing their brilliance live, we do want to recognize them.
So, please join us in congratulating the winners of the 2020 SAS Global Forum Academic Awards.
The Distinguished SAS Educator Award recognizes an educator who has made significant contributions to advancing analytics education and preparing students for careers in analytics and data science. This year, Steven Myers from The University of Akron received this award for his work supporting students and incorporating analytics in the classroom and beyond. Myers has been teaching for over four decades and considers himself an “evangelist” for data science.
A new award, the Emerging SAS Educator Award, honors an educator who has shown exemplary progress in advancing analytics education and creating new analytics and data science talent. Leila Halawi from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University integrates analytics into instruction and prepares her students to enter the workforce by staying up to date with industry needs.
Building on a history of support for historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), SAS developed a new travel award for HBCU Educators to acknowledge their work in the analytics world. Award recipients were selected based on their contributions and interest in expanding analytics education at their institution. Three recipients were selected to receive this award:
Anthony Troy Adams, Kentucky State University
Burcu Adivar, Fayetteville State University
Jason Black, Florida A&M University.
The SAS Global Forum Student Symposium competition is an opportunity for teams of postsecondary students and a faculty advisor to showcase their skills and compete with other teams in the application of SAS Analytics in big data. Chosen from among eight team presentations, the winning team from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN, applied machine learning techniques to National Science Foundation data to recommend similar proposal abstracts to aid the merit review process for proposals. This year’s Student Symposium teams were:
Twin Cities Outliers University of St. Thomas (WINNER)
Students: Himanshu Gamit, Jacob Noble
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Manjeet Rege
Back to the SAS Oklahoma State University
Students: Aravind Dhanabal, Mason Kopasz, Alexander Lindsay
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Venu Gopal Lolla
Beauties and the Bee-st Kennesaw State University
Students: Rachel Bishop, Damarkus Green, Karin Kolb
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Sherry Ni
Data Jockeys Oklahoma State University
Students: Mounica Mandapati, Nitesh Maruthi, Venkat Ram Reddy, Ashlesha Sampathi
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Venu Gopal Lolla
Mining Minds Oklahoma State University
Students: Venkateshwarlu Konduri, Sarada Padathula, Asish Pamu, Sravani Sigadam
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Venu Gopal Lolla
PROC REGulating this Debt University of North Carolina Wilmington
Students: Kayla Barrier, Katherine Floyd, Carl Palombaro
Faculty Advisor: Dr. James Blum
SASsy Coders Oklahoma State University
Students: Neil Belford, Jordan Humes, Manasi Murde, Bruce Rehburg
Faculty Advisor: Dr. Venu Gopal Lolla
SASsy Seahawks University of North Carolina Wilmington
Students: Emma Delehanty, Victoria Mullin, Austin Willoughby
Faculty Advisor: Dr. James Blum
Other SAS Global Forum academic award winners include:
Fifteen educators from US and international post-secondary institutions were awarded Faculty Scholarships to support their continued work in analytics education.
Alice Etim Winston Salem State University
Dennis Fried Rutgers School of Public Health
Jose Mendoza Sacred Heart University
Sollie Millard University of Pretoria
Michael Naraine Deakin University
Jose Noguera Southern University and A&M College
Collins Okafor North Carolina A&T State University
Alan Olinsky Bryant University
Yazan Roumani Oakland University
Saleem Shaik North Dakota State University
Tih Koon Tan University of the District of Columbia
Krista Varanyak University of Virginia
Anthony Williams De Montfort University
Fourteen Student Ambassadors were selected in recognition of students using SAS software to benefit their fields of study.
Sadikshya Basnet Oakland University
Rachel Baxter Grand Valley State University
Rachael Becker Southern Methodist University
Sreejita Biswas Oklahoma State University
Maria Gandarilla Ocampo Washington University in St. Louis
Diana Gonzalez Arizona State University
Sidney Hann Grand Valley State University
Stefanie Kairs National University
Navjot Kaur Oklahoma State University
Nandini Rakala Florida Institute of Technology
Stefan Stoyanov University of Surrey
Anna Tsutsui Osaka University
Alyssa Venn Kennesaw State University
Katelyn Ware Grand Valley State University
In addition, twelve individuals from outside the United States received the International Professional Award for expanding analytics education. Also, fourteen professionals, who have never attended SAS Global Forum and have used SAS for less than five years, submitted compelling applications that garnered them the New SAS Professional Award.
Check out today's press release for more info, and congratulations to the honorees!
https://www.sas.com/en_us /news/press-releases/2020/june/education-awards-sgf20.html
