Jake is from Batavia, Illinois and is a junior at BYU. He is double majoring in International Business and French Studies. Following graduation he plans on attending law school and studying international business law. He began working at IDeA Labs in August 2007. He is excited for this opportunity to work in such a creative environment and learn more about the mathematical sciences.He is also very recently married and is loving married life.

Tanja grew up Miami, Florida, but also spent many years living in Norway (and Denmark). In 2005 she completed her master's degree in Computer Science at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She then served a Spanish speaking mission in Provo, Utah before beginning her PhD studies in Computer Science at BYU. Tanja's current research focuses on multi-agent dynamical systems in market power analyses.

Advisor: Sean Warnick

Blake is from West Jordan, Utah. He served an LDS mission to Veracruz, Mexico from 2000-2002. He has been a teachers assistant for programming, data structures, and algorithm analysis. He had an internship with Symantec writing enhancements to existing security software from 2004-2005. He served as Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter vice president and president from 2004-2006. He was BYU ACM programming champion and took 8th place at the ACM regional programming competition. He received the Wells Fargo Dependent Scholarship for two years. He earned a full tuition scholarship to BYU, and graduated with a bachelors degree in Computer Science this past April. He is now pursing his PHD at BYU. Blake joined the research group in January 2006, and has worked on the verification problem as well as the retail laboratory project.

Advisor: Sean Warnick

Luther is an artistic lover of algorithms with no particular care what problem the algorithm is designed to solve. He came to BYU as a Junior in 2003 with no prior background in computers or algorithms and immediately began algorithmic research, working over the next four years on algorithms dealing with higher-dimensional space visualization, formal verification, real-time graphics, algorithmic reactive navigation, and a variety of side projects. In 2007, with his Masters thesis on simulation and visualization techniques for environments with multidimensional time nearly complete, he joined IDeA Labs to enjoy the algorithmic implications of existing IDeA labs work and developing additional ideas, particularly in the verification of dynamic controllers and efficient approximation of related NP-hard problems.

Advisor: Sean Warnick

In 2007, Jeremy completed his B.S. degree at BYU in Mathematics and Computer Science. Currently he is pursuing a Master’s degree in mathematics with an emphasis in analysis. As an undergraduate Jeremy was a recipient of the four-year full tuition Heritage Scholarship. He was actively involved in mentored research in wireless data communications, machine learning, and data compression. Jeremy has worked as a software engineer for the last 10 years and owns his own software consulting firm which he operates part time. After completing his M.S. degree at BYU, Jeremy will pursue a Ph.D. in mathematics.

Advisor: Jeffrey Humpherys

Bryant grew up in Columbus, Ohio, just a stone's throw away from the 'Sho'e. As a child, he enjoyed crunching numbers while watching the Buckeyes beat up on some hapless opponent during football season. At BYU, Bryant received the Heritage Scholarship for his outstanding achievements during high school. He played two seasons with BYU's lacrosse team, winning a National Championship in 2007. He joined IDeA Labs when the season ended. He is currently a junior at BYU, with plans to graduate in 2009 with a degree in mathematics. He is currently researching inventory control and options pricing, and hopes one day to be able to learn something that is not already known.

Advisor: Jeffrey Humpherys

Ian Fillmore is a Junior at BYU from Tahlequah, Oklahoma. From July 2004 to July 2006 he served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Long Beach, California. He is double-majoring in Statistics and Economics and plans to attend graduate school in Economics and pursue a career in research. In his spare time, he enjoys playing the trumpet, playing tennis, and running. Ian is a member of the American Statistical Association and an officer in Mu Sigma Rho. His research interests include Education Policy and Finance. He joined IDeA Labs in Summer Term of 2007 and is currently researching applications of dynamic control theory to monetary policy.

Advisor: Jeffrey Humpherys

McKay Heasley is from Fresno, California. From 2002 to 2004 he served a mission for the LDS church in Florida. He joined the IDeA Labs cohort in July 2007. He is a junior studying Mathematics. He is currently involved in research in the Computational Economics and Financial Systems Lab. His current work involves using control theory given limited information to describe occurrences in the stock market.

Advisor: Jeffrey Humpherys

Tommy Leininger is a Junior from Ogden, Utah. He is majoring in Actuarial Science, with a very possible minor in Economics. He is a lifelong BYU football fan and loves to ski, play tennis, and eat good food. In the spring of 2007 he began his involvement with research in the mind-boggling world of Bayesian statistics and MCMC estimation methods. He joined the IDeA Labs team during the fall of 2007.

Advisor: Shane Reese

Courtney is a sophomore from Salt Lake City, Utah. She is majoring in Mathematics and Actuarial Science. She enjoys running, hiking, and swimming. She also loves cooking and reading. In 2007 she was named, "Most Outstanding Sophomore" by the Mathematics Department. She is researching inventory management using operations research. She is working with PhD. candidate Blake Durschi on the retail laboratory project with the BYU Bookstore. Upon graduation she plans to pursue graduate work in any one of the following fields: Mathematics, Operations Research, Economics, or Statistics.

Advisor: Sean Warnick

Candice Marett is majoring in Mathematics at BYU where she joined IDeA Labs in August 2007. She earned an Associate’s Degree from Utah State University in April 2006 prior to graduating from Duchesne High School in June 2006. She has been awarded the New Century Scholarship from the state of Utah and half tuition from BYU. Candice plans to focus her research in Biology where she will contribute to mathematical modeling of biological systems.

Advisor: Sean Warnick

Hayley Mattson is a senior from Roy, Utah, majoring in Statistical Science and minoring in Italian. She studied in Italy from July 2005 to February 2006 where in addition to her academic pursuits, she had the opportunity to work with the US Olympic Committee. Hayley has received various academic scholarships, including a full-tuition scholarship and the Robert C. Byrd scholarship. This coming year, she will serve as the Treasurer for BYU's chapter of Mu Sigma Rho, a statistics honor society. Hayley is looking to obtain a doctorate in biostatistics after she graduates.

Advisor: Jeffrey Humpherys

Steve is one of the founding students of the IDeA labs, joining in the fall of 2003. His projects included customer loyalty program research and design for the BYU bookstore, pattern-based learning for natural language processing and robotic control, with forays into system identification and control theory. While at BYU Steve received two ORCA research grants and was twice awarded the Edwin S Hinckley Scholarship. He completed internships with Sandia National Laboratories and Amazon.com before graduating in 2005 with a BS in Computer Science and a minor in Mathematics. Working with the people and projects of the IDeA Labs was the highlight of his BYU experience. After graduation, he went to work on the Demand Forecasting team at Amazon.com, helping produce daily point and distribution forecasts for 8 million products worldwide.

Advisor: Sean Warnick
Papers: JCIS05

Lei Lei obtained her Bachelors degree in Computer Science and Telecommunication in China. She completed her Masters degree at Brigham Young University in 2006. After graduation, she went to pursue her PhD at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. She had received the BYU departmental 2/3 tuition scholarship for two years and was awarded the Excellent Leadership & Service from Chinese Student & Scholar Association. She worked in IDeA Labs from Aug. 2004 to May. 2006. Her primary research interest is in Hidden Markov model realizations and approximations, Geographic Information System (GIS), and applying Hidden Markov models to solve practical ecological problems such as simulating post-fire successional dynamics, predicting vegetation composition from different Silvicultural pathways. During summer of 2006 she was an intern with the Natural Resource Consulting Group in the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI). Contact: lei.lei@yale.edu

Advisor: Sean Warnick
Papers: Thesis06

Matthew began research with IDeA Labs in November 2004. He initiated a research project with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation involving the modeling and control of Piute Dam in the Sevier River Basin of Utah. Matthew used this research to complete his honors thesis requirement and qualify for honors graduation. Matthew was also involved with the IDeA Labs demand forecasting group and researching methods to forecast demand for the BYU Bookstore. His interests are system identification, feedback control, dynamic systems, demand forecasting, and game theory.

Matthew was a recipient of the prestigious Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship for 2005. He has also been the recipient of two BYU Office of Research and Creative Activities grants for research and development of an appropriate software framework for web-based hydrological data display (2004) and the system identification process for Piute Dam/Sevier River (2005). Matthew has also received other scholarships including the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Scholarship, the National Instruments Scholarship, and many full/half tuition BYU scholarships. Matthew graduated from BYU in April 2006 with a B.S. in Computer Science. Following graduation, Matthew went to pursue his PhD at Cornell University studying Operations Research

Advisor: Sean Warnick
Papers: Thesis06

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David was a recipient of the Gordon B. Hinckley Presidential Scholarship, the Micron Technology Scholarship, and the National Merit Scholarship. He maintained a high GPA and was inducted into the Golden Key and Phi Kappa Phi honor societies, in addition to being on the College of Physical and Mathematical Science's Dean's List every semester of his college career. David's main interests center on the mathematics and algorithms used in accurately simulating physical and economical systems. At IDeA Labs, he was involved in a variety of economics-related research. Following graduatin, Dave went to work at National Instruments, working on Controls Software.

Advisor: Sean Warnick

Casey joined IDeA Labs in November 2005. While at IDeA Labs, Casey actively participated in research involving time-series and econometric analysis with a particular emphasis on subspace identification methods. In 2006, Casey helped to instigate the Tour de Finance, a novel inter-university equity-portfolio management competition that is regulated and scored by a unique dynamical system that attempts to mimic the underlying dynamics of the mutual fund market. In culmination of this project, Casey presented a paper discussing the competition as a regulating dynamic system at the 2007 American Controls Conference in New York City & was awarded the best paper recognition for this session.

In August 2007, Casey graduated from BYU with a B.S. in Mathematics and Economics.In addition to earning multiple scholarships while at BYU, in 2005 he was awarded the Mathematics Department's "Outstanding Junior Honoree" award, and in 2007 he was awarded the Orson Pratt Prize in Mathematics--an award bestowed annually by BYU's Mathematics Department to its top graduating senior. Following graduation, Casey went to purse a PhD at the University of Chicago in Economics with a particular emphasis in Asset Pricing and Macroeconomic Dynamics.

Advisor: Jeffrey Humpherys & Sean Warnick
Papers: ACC07

Russell Howes has been at IDeA Labs since May of 2006, working in the Computational Biology and Environmental Systems lab on problems relating to identifying and constructing biological networks. He graduated from BYU in April 2008 in Mathematics. While at BYU Russell was awarded grants from the BYU Office of Research and Creative Activities and the BYU Honors Department to support his work on dynamical structure functions. He has also been a high scorer on the William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Exam in 2002, 2005, and 2006. After grduation, Russell left to pursue his PhD from UCLA.

Advisor: Sean Warnick
Papers: ID2

William Christensen received his B.S. and M.S. in Statistics from Brigham Young University in 1994 and 1995, respectively. After which, he completed his Ph.D. in Statistics from Iowa State University in 1999. He has received both the University Teaching Excellence Award and Dan Mowrey Consulting Excellence Award from Iowa State University, in 1997 and 1999 respectively. He also received the Young Scholar Award from Brigham Young University in 2005.

Research Interests: Statistical methods for pollution source apportionment, multivariate analysis, spatial statistics, resampling methods, analysis of environmental data, latent variable modeling of multivariate spatial data, statistical inference for functional MRI data.

Shane Reese received his B.S. and M.S. in Statistics from Brigham Young University in 1994 and 1995 respectively. He then continued his education by obtaining his Pd.D. in Statistics from Texas A&M University in 1999. He received both the Connor Award and University Distinguished Graduate Student from Texas A&M University in 1999. He also received the Young Scholar Award from Brigham Young University from 2004-7, was the Brigham Young University Department of Statistics Honored Faculty Member in 2002 and received the Department Chair's Outstanding Paper Award in 2005.

Dennis Tolley received his B.S. in Statistics from Brigham Young University in 1970 and, Ph.D. in Biostatistics from the University of North Carolina in 1974 and his A.S.A. in Actuarial SSciences from the Society oof Actuaries in 1981. He received the Honors Professor of the Year award at Brigham Young University in 2000 and was awarded the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences Excellence in Teaching Award for Ten or more years of service at Brigham Young University in 2003.