Lauren Mudd is ready for a little more free time — and so are her children.

“There was a lot of, ‘Mommy, when you graduate, can we do this?’” Mudd says. “I put this mentality in their minds because I needed to focus on school. And now since my defense, I can say, ‘What do you want to do?’ And we go out and do it. I hope that they can see that all the hard work paid off, but they’re also only 8, 5, and 3!”

Mudd’s family will travel with her from their home in Archer City, Texas, to watch her receive a PhD in biostatistics from the University of Iowa College of Public Health during the December 2024 commencement ceremony.

It was Iowa that introduced Mudd to biostatistics. After participating in a statistics-based research project as an undergraduate at Sam Houston State University in Texas, Mudd began looking for another statistics research experience. She discovered the Iowa Summer Institute in Biostatistics (ISIB), a seven-week program funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute that provides biostatistical research education and research opportunities to undergraduates with interest in the field.

“I was there for one summer, and I absolutely fell in love with the department, with the research, and I fell in love with the campus,” Mudd says. “That was how I was introduced to Iowa and to the world of biostatistics versus just regular statistics. I felt that, through it, I was able to have more of an impact on society, that the work that I would do would have a significant impact on the world.”

After graduating with her undergraduate degree, she returned to Iowa and received an MS in biostatistics in 2014.

Since then, Mudd has had three children, moved back to Texas, and started working as a biostatistician, all while pursuing a PhD.

“It took a lot of focus, dedication, and not giving up,” Mudd says. “I missed out on a lot of fun things while I just sat and worked. It took a lot of sacrifices from everyone — myself, my husband, our kids.

“But the dissertation work did ultimately end up being fun, and I kind of don’t want it to be done now that I’m at the end.”

What are your some of your earliest memories on campus?

When I did ISIB, we stayed on the east side of campus and we had to walk to the other side of campus, and we would always walk as a group. So, my earliest memories are of walking across the bridge every single day with my tiny little group of about eight of us. We all wanted to learn statistics, we all had that commonality, and we were a little tight-knit group that traveled everywhere together.

And then once I was attending Iowa and taking courses, it was the same thing. There was a group of us at the College of Public Health who had a stat inference class across the river, so we would all pack our things up and walk across the river to the statistics building. So, I made that walk plenty of times in my years in Iowa City.

What’s been your favorite memory during your time on campus?

Watching the fireworks on the hill. Sometimes our family would come into town, and we would all load up and go sit on the hill and watch the fireworks. I did it during ISIB and I did it every summer while we lived there.

What has surprised you most about your time at Iowa?

My undergrad experience was at a small school. I was always afraid that at a big university I would be lost in a crowd. But that did not happen at all — especially in the biostatistics department. We all talked regularly. We knew all the professors. It made me feel like I could thrive in that type of environment.

What do you think you’ve gotten from your experience at Iowa that you wouldn’t have at another school?

The ability to be able to talk and collaborate among each other and collaborate with our professors. We were able to bounce ideas off each other and truly help each other understand what we were trying to do instead of competing with each other. I really appreciated that mentality and the environment that existed.

How would you describe what it’s like to be a part of the Hawkeye community?

I got a lot of the Midwestern feels from everyone who’s a Hawkeye. And it’s contagious. Even though I’m from Texas and we have a different kind of hospitality, it’s so nice to be in that environment.

So, I would say being a Hawkeye means that you have earned a degree through a supportive and collaborative environment, all while being able to take with you that contagious Midwestern mentality after you leave.

Who has been the most important mentor you have found here?

My mentor, Jake Oleson. He’s my dissertation advisor and has been with me from the beginning and helped me throughout the journey. He’s been a support person consistently, even through periods when I wanted to give up. He probably didn’t know that I wanted to, but we would have a meeting and he would tell me to keep going, keep working. Tell me I was doing good. And that was enough to keep me working on it.