Lili Tang ‘15 was recognized with the Applied Mathematics Student Research Award for her thesis evaluating crime data in Flint, Michigan. Tang is the first Kettering University undergraduate to receive this award since Matthew Causley in 2003. Causley is now a professor in the Department of Mathematics at Kettering.

Tang examined crime data obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1950 to 2012 and correlated it with population and unemployment trends in the area. Annual reports were only available online starting in 1995 so Tang requested scanned copies dating back to 1950 from the Boston Public Library.

“I ran tests on them to find the relationships. There are significant relationships between crime and unemployment rate,” Tang said.

However, Tang notes that the peaks and valleys in crime in Flint are consistent with national trends during the same time periods. Tang presented her research at the International Statistics Conference on campus in June 2014 and was awarded $500 for winning the student research award in October 2015. Dr. Boyan Dimitrov and Dr. Leszek Gawarecki served on her thesis committee.

Tang’s undergraduate thesis is unique in the math department because it’s academic. Most of her peers opt for a co-op thesis that contributes directly to their employers. Tang completed her co-op at Albar Industries in Lapeer, Michigan, but chose to pursue an academic thesis in order to heighten her understanding of statistical tools and better comprehend the patterns in her surrounding community.

“I wanted to do a research thesis,” Tang said. “For me, it was very interesting to first discover this data and then determine trends and relationships over a long period of time.”

Using publicly available data, Tang mapped out the crime rates since 1950 and then attempted to correlate the trends to other factors such as population and unemployment.

“The crime rate is a mountain shape in that there’s a peak,” Tang said. “We tried to find out what’s going on with that peak.”

Tang graduated with an Applied Mathematics degree with a concentration in Actuarial Science. She’s currently studying for her actuarial exam in Grand Blanc, Michigan.