The 2015 Marcelo Cruz intern is Moinak Bhaduri. Mr. Bhaduri is pursuing his Ph.D. in Statistics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He received his B.S. in Statistics from St. Xavier’s College, Kolkata, India in 2010. Over the summer, Mr. Bhaduri assisted the Prescio team with Operational Risk and investigating a 5-parameter density to model financial losses.

“Staying within the strict confines of university life, it is only very natural for graduate students like us to lose connection with reality – a trait that is particularly detrimental to one’s overall statistical health – irrespective of whether he chooses to stay in academia or switches to industry. Internships are excellent opportunities to reestablish that connection and this summer, Prescio gave me an offer too lucrative to resist.

Each day of my 2.5 month – long stay at Casa Grande was extremely rewarding, fulfilling and exciting – both academically and non-academically. I got an insight into how the banking industry works and the statistical tools necessary to address the problems that bother them the most. An unexpected connection to my ongoing Ph.D. dissertation proved to be a welcome corollary. I’m greatly indebted to Prescio for giving me the chance to talk to renowned statisticians both in academia and in the banking industry and for encouraging me to explore the possibility of formulating new statistical tools. Personally, I liked working on the Operational Risk side and investigating a 5-parameter density to model financial losses along with a mixture of a parametric-nonparametric approach to efficiently estimate a tail threshold are projects I enjoyed the most. These are ideas that traditional courses or textbooks rarely venture into and long coding-related talks with the IT guy Suman and the other intern Travis helped me to successfully implement some of these nascent ideas. Thanks to them, my R codes are more civilized and pleasing to work with.

Prescio’s effort to give an exposure of this sort to graduate students is definitely laudable and I bear no shame in admitting that I took away a lot more than what I brought in.”

Chizuko Iwaki is a native of Japan and is the 2014 Marcelo Cruz summer intern. Ms Iwaki has already obtained an MS in Computational Mathematics and an MS in Statistics at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville where she is studying complex variables as part of her work towards a Ph.D. in Mathematics.

“I would like to thank you for hosting my internship over the last three months. You and everyone else at Prescio were both extremely kind and welcoming to me; the experience was so much more than I could have ever expected. Because I was given the opportunity to work on a variety of real world projects, I have been able to not only expand my skills but revise my future career goals as well. My time and experiences at Prescio have allowed me to explore and appreciate other aspects and applications of my field, which has definitely broadened my view of future career possibilities. It meant so much to me to be a part of such a wonderful team. I really enjoyed all of the extra things you do for everyone at Prescio; it was obvious to me that you are an employer who realizes and appreciates the value of good team members. I consider myself very fortunate to have been a part of such a great organization. Once again, thank you for this invaluable opportunity.”