Alumni Newsletter
Ping Ma on Inner Earth
Funded by the National Science Foundation, Professor Ping Ma is a principle investigator on a geophysics research team that studies the temperature in the interior of Earth. He developed a data-driven computational approach in revealing the secrets about inner earth. The publications in Science and in Journal of Geophysical Research coauthored by Professor Ma were featured in news media nationally and internationally in 2007.
Jeff Douglas on Cognitive Diagnosis
Cognitive diagnosis is a promising and active area of psychometric research that aims to provide multifaceted feedback to test takers on skills they have mastered and areas where they need improvement. Funded by the National Science Foundation and ETS (an educational testing company), Professor Jeff Douglas has led the efforts in developing sophisticated statistical models to do cognitive diagnosis more effectively through better test constructions and better model fitting. In the near future, your kids might benefit directly from his research as more states adopt new practices in cognitive diagnosis.
Yuguo Chen on Tomographic Analysis of the Solar Atmosphere
Knowledge of the solar corona's 3D distribution of density and temperature is needed to model the propagation of solar disturbances from the Sun's surface out to the near-Earth environment, where effects on space-weather (such as power grid failures) may be observed, experienced and, ultimately, mitigated. Current and next generation Sun observing spacecraft are providing us with unprecedented access to, and challenging amounts of, data regarding the three dimensional and time varying structure of the corona. Professor Chen is funded by the NSFs Collaboration in Mathematical Geosciences (CMG) program to develop Monte Carlo filtering algorithms optimized for non-linear and non-Gaussian probability distribution functions. These algorithms are important to the research of dynamic solar rotational tomography.
Xuming He on Telemedicine
Professor Xuming He collaborates with Professor Adrienne Perlman of Speech and Hearing Sciences on studying real-time internet-based valuation of patients referred for swallowing videofluoroscopic studies. He and his student assistants provided the statistical expertise to ensure an appropriate clinical study performed to enable careful evaluation of the telemedicine reliability. This research has been funded by NIH on a multi-center grant, involving two hospitals in Wisconsin and Arkansas, in addition to UIUC. If the new procedure proves to be reliable, it would make videofluoroscopic exams available to many patients in rural areas where good clinicians are unavailable locally.