Young statistician’s grant awarded to Sven Erik Ojavee

Sven Erik Ojavee defended his Master’s thesis “Estimating Ancestry Using Genome Data: The Analysis of Estonian Genome Center Data” at the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of Tartu. The aim of the thesis was to describe the ancestry of the gene donors of the Estonian Genome Center as regards ethnic nationality and also within Estonia.

According to the chair of the grant committee Kaja Sõstra, the level of participation in the competition was very high and it was difficult to pick the winner. “Each jury member chose 3–4 top papers and the end result was very close. The winning paper stood out in terms of the use of innovative methods, systematic presentation of information and interesting results, which were visualised very well through graphs and charts,” Sõstra explained.

The supervisor of the thesis Krista Fischer believes that Sven Erik’s paper will no doubt attract international interest. The results of the study showed that it is possible to identify such genetic variation even in a small country like Estonia.

Sven Erik Ojavee’s thesis is available on Statistics Estonia’s website.

The winner will be awarded a tablet computer. 13 Bachelor’s and Master’s theses and final papers were submitted for competition.

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. The Albert Pullerits young statistician’s grant was first awarded by Statistics Estonia in 2011, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Estonian statistics.