Alumnus Brad Price wins Civilian Achievement Award
“When we think about vaccines, most people don’t think about data,” remarked School of Statistics Alumnus Brad Price.
Price, an assistant professor and data scientist at West Virginia University, has been contributing to the analysis of COVID-19 vaccine supply chain data in order to efficiently distribute vaccines throughout West Virginia. Price and his colleague, Katherine Kopp, combined their efforts to develop dashboards for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, identifying which populations are at greater risk and how they can effectively allocate vaccines to those communities.
“...Working without that [supply chain data] would leave our state leadership operating blindfolded with vaccine distribution,” Price expressed.
In summer, 2020, their invaluable efforts were recognized with a Civilian Service Achievement Award from the West Virginia National Guard later that year. This, among other achievements, led to their recruitment in early 2021.
While the awards are appreciated, Price and Kopp find greater satisfaction in helping the members of their community.
“It’s our job to fulfill our land-grant mission and protect the population of the state,” Price proclaimed. “If we can help West Virginia get to the other side of the pandemic, I’m all in. We’re not going to say ‘no’ to those calls.”
Price received his Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Minnesota School of Statistics, under the advisement of Dr. Adam Rothman and Dr. Charles Geyer.
