The Education Committee

EDUCATION COMMITTEE MEMBERS

Dr Nombuso Zondo

CHAIR

Ms Fransonet Reyneke

SECRETARY

Postgraduate Paper Competition

Student Membership


University of Pretoria

educom@sastat.org

Mrs Yoko Channa

COMMITTEE MEMBER

SASA Website coordination/planning

MoU's

Liason between Education Committee and StatsSA/Eskom/SAS


University of the Witwatersrand

Mr Sisa Pazi

COMMITTEE MEMBER

3rd Year Bursary/Scholarship Competition

2nd  Year Bursaries/Scholarship Competition

SAS Base Certification


Nelson Mandela University

Ms Nombuso Zondo

COMMITTEE MEMBER

SAS Honours Project Competition 


University of KwaZulu-Natal

Prof Delia North

COMMITTEE MEMBER

Capacity building in Statistics Education


University of KwaZulu-Natal

PAST WINNERS AND RECIPIENTS

2020 Winners

2020 Postgraduate Paper Competition winners sponsored by SASA


1st Prize

Thembikosi Kunene (UP)

Title:Spatial dependency between a linear network and a point pattern

2nd Prize

Ivan Jericevich & Murray McKechnie (UCT)

Calibrating an adaptive Farmer-Joshi Agent-based model for financial markets



2020 Honours Bursary & Scholarship Competition winners sponsored by SAS®, ICCSSA and SASA


SAS Bursary: Sifundo Khumalo (UKZN)

ICCSSA Bursary: Sibongiseni Mthethwa (UKZN)

SASA Scholarship: Mathew De Bie (UP)



2020 Third Year Bursary & Scholarship Competition winners sponsored by SASA


Bursaries: Siyabonga Mazibuko (UKZN) and Zama Khumala (UKZN)

SASA Scholarship: Carl Combrick (UCT) and Santino Del Fava (UP) - Shared

2019 Winners

2019 Postgraduate Paper Competition winners sponsored by SASA


1st Prize

Lionel Yelibi (UCT)

Fast Super-Paramagnetic Clustering

2nd Prize

Essodina Takouda (UJ)

Ruin Probability in the Delayed Renewal Risk Model perturbed by Diffusion Process

3rd Prize

Shawn C Liebenberg (NWU)

A New Test for the Rayleigh distribution using the lesser-known Mellin Transform



2019 SASA Honours Project Competition Sponsored by SAS®


1st Prize

Matthew De Vries & Romelon Chetty (UCT)

Artificial Neural Networks in Precipitation - Stream Flow Modelling

2nd Prize

Nina Grundlingh (UKZN)

Modelling Impact Rates using Additive Models: A Case Study of Altech Netstar Data

3rd Prize

Yaseer Khan(Wits)

An Exploration of Penalized Logistic Regression Models in the context of Dreaded Disease Risks



2019 Honours Bursary & Scholarship Competition winners sponsored by SAS®, ICCSSA and SASA


SAS Bursary: Ketsane Nkuna (NWU)

ICCSSA Bursary: Mzimasi Mhlana (Unisa)

SASA Scholarship: Bernard McDonald(NMU)



2019 Third Year Bursary & Scholarship Competition winners sponsored by SASA


Bursaries: Ramaodi Matabane (Wits)Amanda Sithole (UWC)

SASA Scholarship: Thalentha Ngobeni (UCT)

2018 Winners

Postgraduate Paper Competition winners 2018


1st Prize

Jean-Claude Malela-Majika (UNISA)

Modified side-sensitive synthetic double sampling monitoring scheme for simultaneously monitoring the process mean and variability

2nd Prize

Isaac Singihi (UCT)

Diagnostics for joint models for longitudinal and survival data

3rd Prize

Anri Oosthuysen (UP)

Two new tests for Exponentiality based on the waiting times of the Poisson process



2018 SASA Honours Project Competition Sponsored by SAS®


1st Prize

James Lloyd (UCT)

The Classification of Galaxy Images Using Convolutional Neural Networks

2nd Prize

Sibusiso Thabene (UCT)

Sampling from Distributions Using Genetic Algorithms

3rd Prize (and Best Use of SAS)

Mark de Lancey (UP)

CLARA Algorithm for Image Clustering

4th Place

 Ian Louw & Tristan Naidoo (SU)

An Empirical Study to Classify the Daily Movement of Naspers Ltd.’s Share Price: A Comparison of Statistical Learning Techniques



2018 Honours Bursary & Scholarship Competition winners


SAS Bursary: Noxolo Maluleke (UL)

Scholarship: Chiara Fazzini (UP)



2018 Third Year Bursary & Scholarship Competition


Bursary: T Chetty (UKZN)

Scholarships: A Viljoen (NWU) and BM McDonald (NMU)

2017 Winners

Postgraduate Paper Competition winners 2017


1st Prize

J Nienkemper-Swanepoel (SUN)

Exploratory study for the visualisation of incomplete multivariate categorical data 

2nd Prize

K Yoo (UP)

Probabilistic SEM: An augmentation to classical structural equation modelling

Pali Lehohla Award for the Best Emerging Statistician

N Zondo (UKZN)

Student Attitudes towards Statistics: The case of South Africa



SAS Honours Project Winners 2017


1st Prize

Zolisa Bleki (UCT)

Laplace variational influence of the single-season site occupancy model using a probit link function

2nd Prize

Gabriel de Wet (UP): Methods for semi-supervised text classification

3rd Prize

Nathaniel Joselson (UCT)

An examination of the use and interpretation of principal components in generalised linear models to treat multicolinearity amongst predictors



2017 Third Year Competition Winners


SAS Bursary: A Langston (RU) 

ICCSSA Bursary: Z Adams (SUN)

SASA Scholarship: N Gorlach (NMU)



2017 Second Year Competition Winners


Bursaries: W Chitsike (UP) and C Fazzini (UP)

Scholarship: W Abrahams (NMU)

2016 Winners

Postgraduate Paper Competition winners 2016


1st Prize

P Sewmohan (UP)

A comparison of the EM algorithm and the method of maximum likelihood under constraints (MLEC)

2nd Prize

J Mazarura (UP)

A comparison of the performance of Latent Dirichlet allocation and the Dirichlet multinomial mixture model on short text



SAS Honours Project Winners 2016


1st Prize

Luca Steyn (SUN)

Statistical Modelling with Quantile-based Methods and L-moments

2nd Prize

Brett Rowland (UP)

Mixtures of Gamma Distributions to Model the Signal-to-Noise Ratio of Wireless Channels

3rd Prize

Kaylan Moodley (UCT)

Application of Linear Programming to a Classification Problem



2016 Third Year Competition Winners


SAS Bursary: C Dunderdale (NMMU)

ICCSSA Scholarship: L Boswell (RU)

Scholarship: R du Toit (NWU)



2016 Second Year Competition Winners


Bursary: A Langston (RU)

Scholarship: H Maclean (RU)

2015 Winners

Postgraduate Paper Competition Winners 2015


1st Prize

C Janse van Rensburg (UP)

Big Data: A Compressed Sensing Approach

2nd Prize

H Sadiq (UCT)

Inferring HIV-1 Drug Resistance as Episodic Directional Selection using Topic Models

3rd Prize

C Ras (UP)

Risk Performance of a Heteroscedastic Preliminary Test Estimator under the Reflected Normal Loss Function



SAS Honours Project Winners 2015


1st prize

Margaret de Villiers and Dalene Bezuidenhout (SUN)

Influence of Right-Censoring on Some Kernel-Smoothed Hazard Rates

2nd Prize

Alex Lau (UP)

Techniques for Background Modelling in Images

3rd Prize

Izak Nel (UCT)

Investigating Specification Tests for Short Rate Diffusion Models



2015 Third Year Competition Winners


SAS Scholarship: D Botha (SUN)

ICCSSA Bursary: K Mfeka (UKZN)

SASA Bursary: M Alexander (UP)



2015 Second Year Competition Winners


Scholarship: C Dunderdale (NMMU)

Bursaries: C Zwane (UKZN) and S Mphuthu (UP)

2014 Winners

Paper Competition for Young Statisticians winners 2014 (attending ISI in July 2015)


George O. Agogo (Wageningen University and Research Centre, Netherlands, Kenyan)

A flexible Zero-Augmented Generalized Gamma Mixed Effects Regression Calibration model to Correct for Measurement Error in Episodically Consumed Food

Tsiresy Pierre Bernard (UCT, Madagascan)

A graphical overview of social inequality in South Africa

Aviwe Phelele Gqwaka (NMMU, South African)

Efficiency Analysis of Electricity Distribution by South African Municipalities: A Cost Frontier Approach

Seitebaleng Makgai (UP, South African)

Mixture of exponentiated Pareto model through beta type generator

Brenda V. Omachar (UP, Kenyan)

The quantile-based generalized logistic distribution

Opeoluwa. F. Oyedele (UCT, Nigerian)

Biplots for sparse partial least squares

Willem D. Schutte (NWU, South African)

On the application of a new nonparametric estimator for the off-pulse interval of a light curve using a computer package



Postgraduate Paper Competition Winners 2014


1st Prize

Johané Nienkemper-Swanepoel (UFS)

Multiple Imputation using Regularised Iterative Multiple Correspondence Analysis

2nd Prize

Herbert Hove (WITS)

Characterisation of the Joint Behaviour of Competing Risks: Application to Accelerated Reliability Testing

3rd Prize (Official Statistics discipline)

Yegnanew Shiferaw (WITS)

Improved Confidence Intervals under the Fay-Herriot Model: Application to Poverty Incidence in Ethiopia 



SAS Honours Project Winners 2014


Cornu Campher (Wits)

Point-in-Time – Through-the-Cycle Dual Calibration

Lionel Kemba (UKZN)

Modeling financial data using the generalized hyperbolic distribution with an application to South African exchange rates

Melinda Ross (UCT)

Phylogeographic Analysis of the Influenza A Virus in Africa



2014 Third Year Competition Winners


Scholarship: Ms Emma Plumstead (NMMU)

Bursaries: Ms Shannon Sass (NMMU) and Mr Sabelo Mokoena (UKZN)



2014 Second Year Competition Winners


Scholarship: Ms M Alexander (UP)

Bursaries: Mr O Mokoena (UL) and Mr T Mchunu (UKZN)