Cliona Georgia Dalberg wins the young statistician’s grant

The subject of Dalberg’s Bachelor’s thesis, completed at the University of Tartu, is mathematical statistics. The thesis is titled "Imputation of inventories in Estonian Commercial Register" and analyses the mechanisms that cause missing values as well as methods of imputation (i.e. replacement of missing values). Dalberg used the inventories data of annual reports available in the Commercial Register. According to Kaja Sõstra, who is the Head of Methodology and Analysis Department at Statistics Estonia and was the chair of the grant committee, the main advantage of the thesis is that it applies imputation methodology to a real dataset, which contained a large amount of data and included all possible problems. "The outcome of the thesis can be utilised by Statistics Estonia, which makes it very valuable for us," said Sõstra.

The Albert Pullerits young statistician’s grant was first awarded by Statistics Estonia in 2011, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Estonian statistics. Students whose thesis develops or applies a statistical method are eligible to apply for the grant. In 2013, the selected subject areas were the environment and economy.

The Albert Pullerits young statistician’s grant is awarded annually. The aim of the grant is to promote statistics as a very important branch of science, to motivate young people interested in statistics to apply and develop statistical methods, and to strengthen Statistics Estonia’s cooperation with research institutions. This year’s prize was an iPad.

Albert Pullerits was the first director of the Estonian State Central Bureau of Statistics (established in 1921) and the founder of the official statistics system in Estonia.

Cliona Georgia Dalberg’s thesis is available on Statistics Estonia’s website.