Students Graduate with Summa Cum Laude Honours Degrees

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Seven honours students in the Discipline of Statistics within the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science graduated summa cum laude.

They were: Merisha Debipersadh, Vhini Nadar, Santhrika Pillay, Telissa Pillay, Roman Poonsamy, Kireshan Royan and Tiffany Mari. 

Ms Tiffany Mari’s research topic was: “Cox Regression and the Cox proportional hazards model”.

The main aim of the study was to evaluate a protocol change of treatment and its effects on the infection of burn wounds. The Cox regression method and other methods of survival analysis were applied to data collected on burn patients from a case study.

The results of the analysis indicated that the treatment reduced the risk of infection of burn wounds thus creating an infection-free hospital stay for burn patients. ‘I had extremely supportive and motivating lecturers during my studies. The experience gained has helped me grow academically and individually,’ said Mari, who is employed by the Mr Price Group Ltd as a Location Planner.  Mari intends to pursue a Master’s degree in Statistics.

Professor Glenda Matthews said: ‘Tiffany Mari is a conscientious student who showed initiative and dedication to her Honour’s studies. She went the extra mile in everything she did and hence the summa cum laude result.’

Ms Merisha Debipersadh’s research project focussed on long memory and fractional differencing. Long memory is a modelling topic which refers to a data series which depicts a trend over a long time period. This trend has to be taken into account when trying to fit a model to this data. Long memory can be found in a variety of topics, such as stock markets, exchange rates, temperature and others. The research was applied to the flow of the Nile River.

Debipersadh said: ‘Honours is very time consuming and demanding but at the same time very rewarding. I have built strong relationships with my lecturers which helped me gain a lot of knowledge and inspiration for my career.’ Currently Debipersadh is working in the Capital Markets division at Deloitte.

Professor Glenda Matthews said:  ‘The Honours students of 2013 were extremely committed to their studies and the summa cum laude results were due to hard work and the knowledge that outstanding results have their rewards in excellent job opportunities.’ 

Professor Kesh Govinder, Dean and Head of the School Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science said: ‘I am very pleased UKZN continues to produce honours graduates in Statistics who are among the best in the country. It is absolutely crucial for the country that we produce statisticians of the highest calibre as their expertise is crucial to the critical analyses that drive our economy.

‘They also have a vital role to play in mitigating the many problems that plague our society. These graduates have already brought honour to UKZN by their outstanding performance.  We look forward to them having a great national and global impact in this challenging area.’

-          Leena Rajpal