Student Awards

Raj Chandra Bose Travel Award

Due to a generous gift from Dr. Gary Koch and Mrs. Carolyn Koch, the STOR department has funds (of around $3,000 per year) to help STOR graduate students cover costs of travel for presenting their work in conferences. Fully enrolled graduate students in good standing in the STOR PhD program who have previously not received the award are eligible to apply. The plan is to distribute around 4 awards per year with a maximum per award being $750.

Application

Students must provide a proof of presentation of their work at a regional, national, or international academic conference or professional society meeting. Such proof could consist of a notification from the conference or professional society giving the time and date of the presentation or a copy of the official letter of invitation or program announcement verifying their presentation.

The faculty advisor of a student applying for the award should write a brief letter describing the rationale and need for the travel award and its impact attending the conference will have on the student. Any additional funding the advisor can provide will help making more than the aimed 4 awards per year.

There will be two application cycles: one in Spring to decide on the applications for late spring and summer and another in Fall to decide on the applications for Fall and early Spring. Applications for the Fall cycle should be in by September 10th, and those for the Spring cycle should be in by February 10th. Funds permitting, applications will also be considered past these deadlines.

The graduate committee will meet and try to make award decisions within a week after the application deadlines. Priority will be given to students closer to graduation.

Recipients

2022: Alexander Murph (IEEE ICHI)
I would like to thank the UNC Department of Statistics and Operations Research and the Raj Chandra Bose Graduate Student Travel Fund for funding my recent experience at the IEEE ICHI 2022: the 10th IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics. I wanted to participate in this conference as part of my biomedical research with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. IEEE ICHI is a “premier community forum concerned with the application of computer science, information science, data science, and informatics principles, as well as information technology, and communication science and technology to address problems and support research in healthcare, medicine, life science, public health, and everyday wellness.” My work with the Mayo Clinic involves applying Bayesian methods to monitor in-process models over time to ensure that their performance does not suffer from drift or abrupt changes to data. At this conference, I was able to discuss my project with fellow health informatics scientists and raise awareness of my work for others that may want to apply this method to their applications.
In addition to getting to participate in discussions on my research, I was exposed to many other fascinating projects currently going on in the Healthcare Informatics field. I found two projects particularly interesting. In one, researchers were able to identify coughs from ambient sound data, with the eventual aim of diagnosing the type and cause of a cough as a way to continuously monitor public health. In another, stochastic methods were used to generate possible solutions to the discrete optimization problem of how many hospital beds are needed to meet the public health needs in the UK. This was then used to advise local hospitals dealing with an influx of patients in the wake of the COVID pandemic.

2021: Wei Liu (INFORMS Annual Meeting)
Firstly, I want to thank the funding from RC Bose fellowship for supporting my trip to INFORMS annual meeting. Without the funding, it would be much more difficult for me to attend the Conference in person. This is the first time I attend the INFORMS annual meeting in person. I realize that the meaning of attending the conference in person is not only about presenting your research, but also about the networking with other people. It is good to know others’ research and share research interests. In addition, I am in the job market in this fall, it offers me a great chance to attend the job fair and interview in person. This will help me a lot in my career development. Also, even though it is difficult to travel to Los Angeles during the pandemic, it does offer me a chance to relieve myself by changing into a different environment. In terms of the advice, I would suggest that you should be well prepared for your presentation and make a plan on what kind of sessions you want to attend so that you do not miss the ones you like.