WWU Mathematics senior Nolan Mickenham takes second in international statistics competition

WWU Mathematics senior Nolan Mickenham placed second in the Spring 2025 Undergraduate Statistics Class Project Competition, an international mathematics competition for undergraduate students. 

Mickenham’s paper, “Detecting Fraud in Mobile Money Transfers,” took second place in the introductory statistics category and focused on how large changes in a bank account’s balance can act as an indicator of fraudulent behavior. Ultimately, Mickenham’s analysis demonstrated large negative changes in a sender’s original balance are a strong and statistically significant indicator of fraud in mobile money transfers. 

“Placing second in a competition like this made me feel really great about the skills I have developed throughout college,” Mickenham said. “I’m proud of the work I put in and that other people were able to see and appreciate my work as well.” 

Mickenham completed his project as a part of MATH 341: Probability and Statistical Inference under Professor of Mathematics Kimihiro Noguchi. Noguchi picked Mickenham’s paper from his peers as the best candidate to represent his class in the competition. 

“The way Nolan presented and described his statistical results was flawless,” Noguchi said. “It is usually a big challenge for students taking MATH 341 — the first probability/statistics course — to communicate sophisticated mathematical and statistical ideas concisely and accurately with others through writing, but Nolan was able to do so on his own.”

Submissions for the USCLAP must be a paper three pages or shorter in length that was completed as part of an introductory or intermediate statistics class project. USCLAP is sponsored by the American Statistical Association and the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education and has run since 2013.

This is the third time a student project from Western has placed in the USCLAP competition, with students placing third in introductory statistics in fall 2018 and second in intermediate statistics in spring 2020. Western students also received an honorable mention in introductory statistics in spring 2022. 

“I feel fortunate that we have a lot of talented students pursuing various degrees offered by the Mathematics Department at WWU. The winners at the USCLAP competition are usually dominated by students from highly selective private institutions, so I believe part of our students’ continued success comes from fruitful recruitment efforts,” Noguchi said. “At the same time, I also believe that our curriculum is effectively preparing the next generation of mathematicians, statisticians and mathematics teachers as we strongly emphasize the rigor of mathematics as well as its various real-life applications in the courses offered by our department.”

In addition to his mathematics award, Mickenham is a two-time All-GNAC Academic selection as a sprinter on the Track & Field team. His speed has earned him several marks as one of the top sprinters in WWU history, racing to the 3rd-fastest 100m time during the outdoor season (10.35) and the second-fastest indoor 200m time (21.75). He is a four-time All-GNAC performer placing in the top three in an event.

Mickenham, who is an accounting and statistics minor, plans to apply his math and statistics skills toward his future career as an actuary.

For more information about studying mathematics at Western, visit https://mathematics.wwu.edu/ 

Mikayla King (‘17) covers the College of Science and Engineering and Woodring College of Education for the Office of University Communications. Reach out to her with story ideas at kingm24@wwu.edu