Alena Maze, wife, vlogger, and mother of seven, recently made history after becoming the first Black person to earn a Ph.D in Survey Methodology. The YouTube star earned a master’s degree in Mathematics from Georgetown University before pursuing her doctorate from the University of Maryland, College Park.
Maze used her passion for math and health as inspiration to study survey methodology.
“What’s a Survey Methodologist? Well I’m a Survey Statistician, so specifically, I research the math behind surveys,” Maze wrote on Facebook. Maze also shared how her work has real-world implications for health outcomes.
“Suppose we want more information on how diabetes affects women ages 30-40, in order to develop better treatment courses. Well in a perfect world, we would like to send out a survey… to all all women ages 30-40 with diabetes. However, this is not practice for many reasons. So instead we chose a smaller group… say 2,000 women from that same population to represent the whole population of 30 to 40-year old women with diabetes.”
While earning her doctorate the last six years, Maze and her family vlogged their lives on their YouTube channel, sharing an inside look into their multicultural blended family. Maze’s husband, Joseph Lee, is Korean American.
The 35-year-old attributes her success to her relationship with God.
“During this time, I encountered God’s love, through a divine meeting with His Holy Spirit in a way that I cannot wait to share,” she said. “His love has been enough for me to manifest anything I desire to do, be or become.”
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