Lauryn Davis from Lake Orion, Michigan, is the recipient of this year's Excellence in the Discipline Award.  As an applied math major, Lauryn is also working toward a Master’s in Data Science and Analytics that she will complete next year.

Lauryn chose Grand Valley due to her interest in the range of programs offered and her appreciation of the Grand Rapids area.  Arriving in Fall 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic when most classes were held online presented some real challenges.  In particular, she had to move out of the dorms and back home for the Winter semester that year.  However, while she enjoys in-person classes, she also recognizes some benefits from the shift to online learning, such as a greater ease in making connections with other students and professors. 

While Lauryn originally planned to become a teacher, she soon discovered a real love for higher-level mathematics.  Conversations that first semester with her calculus professor Dr. David Austin helped her see that the applied math major would be a good fit, and she’s very happy that she made that switch.

As a result of the applied math and accompanying statistics courses she was taking, Lauryn developed an interest in coding and data science, which made joining GVSU’s Master’s in Data Science program a natural next step.  With only one additional year of school, this program is sure to lead to a wider range of career opportunities in the rapidly growing field of data science.  

Lauryn recently completed a summer internship at Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) where she was part of the Econometrics department and collaborated with an outstanding group of economists and data scientists.  In that role, she developed a Python-based time series database for consumer heuristics that utilized a decade’s worth of quarterly survey responses from new vehicle owners.  Lauryn also applied visualization tools to deploy consumer heuristic profiles and conducted research and analysis on clustering and segmentation.  Working with other interns, her group achieved the highest score in a team connectivity innovation challenge by creating an off-roading guide that leveraged an emerging vehicle experience automation platform.  Lauryn thoroughly enjoyed learning more about econometrics and working with a great group of managers, mentors, and interns.

Lauryn is excited to begin a new internship at Stellantis this coming summer working with their Business Product Intelligence team before returning to Grand Valley for the final year of her Master’s degree.  During that year, she is eager to learn more about machine learning and artificial intelligence and hopes to subsequently find a position with a renowned tech company where she can contribute to product development, analysis, or machine learning creation.

Lauryn has made the most of her time at Grand Valley.  Working as a research assistant with Dr. Bradford Dykes in the Statistics Department, she has created and replicated historical data visualizations.  This year as a Kindschi Fellow, she has developed a website with the R Shiny platform that features an interactive map comparing redlining data with current economic and demographic information for different communities.  It also includes other data visualizations that aim to highlight possible correlations between redlining and the current state of various communities.  She plans to continue this work with Dr. Dykes as a graduate assistant next year. 

Before being named to the Excellence in the Discipline Award, Lauryn received the Outstanding Sophomore Award two years ago and was nominated to the Peter C. Cook Leadership Academy at Grand Valley. 

When asked if there is anything she would have liked to have known when she first came to Grand Valley, Lauryn says that she wishes that high schools would place a greater emphasis on computer science, data science, and applied mathematics.  She never expected to follow this career path and feels that others could benefit by knowing more about the wide range of opportunities available to them.

In addition to her academic work, Lauryn has a love of tutoring kids in math and the language arts, which she expresses through her ongoing work with the GVSU K12 Tutoring Program. 

The mathematics department is so impressed with everything that Lauryn has accomplished during her four years here and knows that the future is sure to bring continued success.  We wish her nothing but the best!