The BEST Award: Details

Award frequency: Each year based on review of student projects by the BEST Award Selection Committee.

Award level: The annual award will be a monetary prize of $4,000. It is expected that the award will be made to one project of a student or collaborating group of students, although two equal awards of $2,000 may be made if there are judged to be two equally competitive submissions.

Review and Selection of Awardees: The BEST Award Selection Committee publicizes the award, promotes student interest and runs the review and selection process. Before the beginning of each academic year, the Selection Committee will announce the competition for that academic year and include in that announcement the deadline for submission.

Eligibility: Duke Undergraduates registered for the Major or Minor in Statistical Science, and Duke Students registered for the PhD or MS in Statistical Science. Projects of single students or students working as a group are eligible. A formal, written project report is required and must be submitted to the Selection Committee prior to the announced deadline.

Students that are family members of the officers of the BEST Foundation, or of a member of the faculty of the Department of Statistical Science, or of any member of the BEST Award and Selection Committees are ineligible.

Criteria: Research projects will be reviewed for their contributions to the application of Bayesian statistical ideas and methods to problems in any area of time series of relevance to financial applications, and other areas of Bayesian statistics in finance. Preference will be given to innovative methodological developments, and research contributions must include computational developments and implementations.

Award Presentation: The award will be presented at Duke University at an appropriate date and venue decided annually by the BEST Award and Selection committees.

Conditions of award: The prize recipient(s) may use the award for any purpose.