Tiffany Le Wins Carter Travel Award!

Tiffany Le presented a poster on Parsimonious Machine Learning Methods for Time Series Forecasting of Valley Fever Infection in Maricopa County, AZ, at the 8th International Coccidioidomycosis Study Group Symposium.

With support from the Herbert E. Carter Travel Award, I had the pleasure of presenting my Valley fever research at the 8th International Coccidioidomycosis Study Group Symposium. The historical decennial conference offered a rare opportunity to share my work on time series forecasting of Valley fever incidence on an international stage and learn directly from renowned researchers and clinicians in the highly specialized field. Because coccidioidomycosis is endemic to the American Southwest and relatively unknown globally, experts form a tight‑knit community. The conference felt almost like a family reunion, and I was welcomed warmly as a new researcher entering the group. I was starstruck meeting so many foundational figures, including the creator of the first Valley fever vaccine and researchers whose work I’ve read and referenced throughout my project. I even crossed paths with the physician at Banner Health in Phoenix who treated my father’s atypical case of Valley fever that stumped many clinicians across the country and inspired my research.

As a researcher specializing in statistics and machine learning, I expected to feel out of place at a health‑centered conference. Instead, I found that many attendees shared similar mathematical and computational backgrounds, and those who didn’t were generous and patient as I continue to learn. A PhD candidate in computer science with a similar data engineering background was intrigued by my abstract and made a point to visit my poster during the session, which I was genuinely touched by. Despite the niche focus of the meeting, I found a home within the small study group and discovered the immense breadth of statistical applications in the discipline, along with new methods, techniques, and directions for future work. The experience was deeply rewarding as I was able to share my research, receive thoughtful feedback from Valley fever experts, and learn about ongoing studies and potential career paths in biostatistics and public health.