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My name is Greg Wilkin, and I've been the titular coach of this Thinkquest team this year. The entire credit for coaching, however, must go to Ngoc, our assistant coach.
I have the good fortune of being Andrew's house counselor at boarding school. I have taught English for a long time, with a specialization in medieval and renaissance English and creative writing. (I did a B.A. in English at Yale and an M.A. and Ph.D. in medieval studies at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto.) I coach boys tennis and have been writing a novel and screenplay about the 1920's tennis hero, Bunny Austin. I also have been preparing a book that tries to clean up the mess Dan Brown made of the Templars and the Holy Grail. That was the topic of my Ph.D. thesis in Toronto, which, if Dan Brown had read would have saved him and a whole bunch of readers a lot of wasted time and earned him a far more honest and modest paycheck the last few years.
I don't know much about www and html, at least on the creative side. But I do like to see what people have done and I'm amazed at the enterprise and accomplishment of my team-members on this interesting topic of epidemiology. Thinkquest should be commended for inspiring such good work.
Hi! I am Ngoc, the Assistant Coach of Disease Detectives. This is the third time I participated ThinkQuest, and the first time to be an assistant coach, which is a totally new and very exciting experience. I was lucky to have excellent team-mates who are very enthusiastic and dedicated. To build a website featuring Epidemiology and RPGs (role playing games) has always been my dream – and I would like to thank my team-mates for making it come true.
The majority of my time is spent oscillating between Vietnam (for the summer holiday), and Australia (for university). I will finish my undergraduate degree in Mathematics this July. Two years ago, my plan was to study medicine after mathematics, and eventually become an epidemiologist. However, while learning about statistics, I was surprised at how many people dislike the field, despite its importance and numerous applications. I truly believe that there has to be a better theory to statistics and probability; there has to be a better way of teaching it, and I hope I would make some contributions to this field.
Similarly, epidemiology is a constantly evolving field. I learned from my team-mate Andrew that students in the US have the opportunity to learn about epidemiology. Then why not students around the world? Why not the public? I think every high school student should know all the career options available to them, and hence this became part of the aim of our website.
Like many of my team mates, I love detective stories (from the classic detective Sherlock Holmes to modern day manga character Detective Conan); and I love computer games. Therefore, building the website has been a great experience. Every ThinkQuest cycle gave me an opportunity to learn: about the topic, team-work, and especially about my team-mates. Though sometimes the work is slow, sometimes we get stuck, together we have put together a neat website, and I am very proud to be the advisor to this brilliant team.
I would like thank my team-mates: Andrew, William, Park, Alexi and Chris, our coach, Dr. Wilkin, for their dedication and hard-work. I would also like to thank Dr. Tuan, Dr. Quan, Dr. Katie, for providing great insights into epidemiology. Finally, Thank You, ThinkQuest, for hosting another cycle of a great competition.
Thank you for visiting, and hope you have enjoyed our site!
