The Wartburg College Department of Math, Computer Science & Physics has awarded Brandon Bloebaum, a senior studying actuarial science, a $1,000 scholarship underwritten by MinneAnalytics.

Since 2015, the organization has provided scholarships to undergraduate students who display a passion for pursuing a career in data analytics and a commitment to the community. Bloebaum has minors in data analytics, computer science and business.

“Brandon has been an outstanding student in his data analytics classes. Additionally, he’s gone above and beyond with his involvement in a number of other data analytics projects that have benefited Wartburg and the wider community,” said Terry Letsche, computer science professor.

Bloebaum found his passion for contributing to data-driven decision making while pursuing multiple research projects, including work with Mariah Birgen, Wartburg professor of mathematics, that led them to develop an interactive COVID-19 dashboard.

“My opportunity to do research with Dr. Mariah Birgen in the summer of 2020 first introduced me to the power of data analytics,” he said. “Our live COVID-19 dashboard used choropleth maps to analyze U.S. states and counties. I also developed an averaging algorithm to display 7-day averages for every state.”

He also has worked under Patricia Dietz, assistant professor of exercise science, to analyze and optimize the lifting power of football and baseball players.

“My opportunity to do research with Dr. Dietz expanded my knowledge and allowed me to apply statistical methods to a new type of data. By working with the exercise science department, I used linear regression techniques to develop an algorithm to find an optimal lifting load for baseball and football players,” he said. “Additionally, I worked with Dr. Dietz to find descriptive statistics and relationships between variables.”

Currently, he is utilizing linear regression techniques to analyze the economic impact of hosting the FIFA World Cup.

After graduation, he plans to pursue a master’s degree in computational finance at Carnegie Mellon University.

“This scholarship gives an opportunity to recognize members of the data science community at the undergraduate level, which is an extremely important honor. As the field continues to grow, recognizing young students will become more important. With this scholarship, I have the opportunity to join a national community that has similar interests to my own as well as share my experiences that spurred my passion,” Bloebaum said. “I am grateful that Wartburg has opened the door for me to pursue my passion in the data science field.”