Four Spears School students receive national scholarships

Friday, March 12, 2010

By Lauren Williams, Spears School Communications Intern
(March 11, 2010 Stillwater, OK) – Four Oklahoma State University students recently received scholarships to attend the SAS Global Forum 2010. The SAS Global Forum is an annual event planned and sponsored by the SAS Global Users Group, a non-profit organization open to all SAS software users throughout the world. The 2010 forum will take place April 11-14 in Seattle, Wash.

Spears School students Maheshwar Nareddy, Murali Pagolu, Anu Penaganti and Promoda Srinivasamurthy each will receive an expense-paid trip to the forum through the scholarship. All four are students in the OSU graduate certificate in business data mining program and are pursuing master’s degrees in management information systems.

“I feel very proud of our students for winning these scholarships on a competitive basis,” said Goutam Chakraborty, OSU professor of marketing and founder of the OSU graduate certificate in business data mining program. “This will provide a great opportunity for OSU students to meet and network with the more than 3,000 attendees at this conference. “

The OSU graduate certificate in business data mining program is housed in the Spears School of Business and is the largest data mining program in the United States. Data mining is the exploration and analysis of large quantities of data in order to discover meaningful patterns and rules. Students in the program receive a broad-based exposure not just to data analysis, but also to data extraction and data management issues. The unique scope of the program at OSU made Nareddy, Pagolu, Peneganti and Srinivasamurthy ideal candidates for the award.

“The graduate certificate program is a great example of the value of collaboration between departments,” said Rick Wilson, head of the OSU Department of Management Science and Information Systems.  “Most students who complete the program earn their master’s degree in management information systems at the same time. These students receive top-notch instruction from both marketing and MSIS faculty, all of whom are experts in their field.”

All four students said they are very grateful for their SAS education and the program at OSU, and feel it will be a worthwhile experience for them.

While at the forum in Seattle, the students will be able to network with hundreds of professionals in data mining, including the authors of their SAS textbooks.

“I'm glad to receive this scholarship and would like to thank Dr. Chakraborty and OSU for providing a good platform with this unique program,” said Pagolu. “It's a great opportunity to network with professionals and academicians around the world working on SAS software from diverse fields of interests. I'm looking forward to listen to SAS experts and understand the power of this software in solving complex business problems,” said Pagolu.

For more information about the SAS/OSU data mining certification program, call 405-744-7644 or visit http://spears.okstate.edu/future/graduate/degrees/certificate/datamining.