Meagan Clement Spychala ('02)

After graduating from W&L in 2002 with honors in mathematics, Meagan Clement Spychala became a graduate student in the Department of Biostatistics of UNC-Chapel Hill's School of Public Health. She earned her DrPH in 2008, successfully defending her dissertation titled "Analysis Techniques for Diffusion Tensor Imaging Data".

Biostatistics is the science of obtaining, analyzing and interpreting data in order to understand and improve human health. As a biostatistician for Rho, inc., Dr. Spychala works on both commercial and federally funded clinical trials, making sure studies are conducted properly and then analyzing the data at the conclusion of the trials. She has worked on a variety of clinical trials since joining Rho in 2005, ranging from those designed to help the lives of children with severe autism to those with Parkinson's disease. Spychala loves her work: "I find it incredibly rewarding that I can help people's lives by using mathematics and statistics."

While a student at W&L, she became interested in population modeling, writing an honors thesis titled "Which Will Survive? An Investigation into the Modeling of Complex Ecosystems." She graduated with a B.S. in mathematics, Phi Beta kappa, magna cum laude.