Interested in pursuing a career as a statistician or data scientist at an academic institution? Perhaps you already have accepted an offer or will be on the market this coming year. Then you won’t want to miss this next career fair sponsored by NISS that will offer essential information about job opportunities for statisticians/data scientists in different academic environments. During this academic career fair, you will hear from senior statisticians and data scientists who will be on hand to provide attendees with an inside look at the varying aspects of research, teaching and service that statisticians in these academic institutions get involved in and the career opportunities available for you to consider!
So if you have received an offer for this fall, what advice would you like to have as you start your first year in the job? What should your priorities be – getting those publications sent out, perfecting your teaching, accepting service and committee assignments? How to answer these questions? We will ask several department heads, from different types of departments, to share their advice to their new hires.
Speakers
Kate Calder, Chair of Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, The University of Texas at Austin
Xuming He, Chair of Department of Statistics & Data Science, Washington University in St. Louis
Michael Hudgens, Chair of Department of Biostatistics at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Moderator
Elizabeth H. Slate, Distinguished Research Professor and Duncan McLean and Pearl Levine Fairweather Professor of Statistics, Department of Statistics, Florida State University
Agenda
Each presenter will give a brief overview of their institutions and discuss their opportunities, then we will transition to a panel discussion that will address the following general topics:
- What advice do you give your new hires?
- How can a new hire seek colleague who can provide good career advice?
- What are the potential distinguishing characteristics of candidates for a tenure-track/tenured faculty position in your institution?
- What advice would you give to potential job candidates this coming year?
- What advice would you give about how Ph.D. students or postdocs should prepare for the future?
A live Q&A Session will take place after the panel discussion.
About the Speakers
Kate Calder is the chair and professor in the Department of Statistics and Data Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. Previously, at The Ohio State University, she served as co-director of the Mathematical Biosciences Institute, one of eight NSF Mathematical Sciences research Institutes. She is a distinguished teacher and researcher who has served in elected leadership positions for professional societies, including as chair of two sections of the American Statistical Association and as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis. Dr. Calder's research interests include Bayesian modeling and computation, spatial and spatio-temporal statistics, multivariate analysis, and network analysis, and she is a widely published expert in the field. A fellow of the American Statistical Association, Dr. Calder is also the recipient of its 2013 Section on Statistics and the Environment Young Investigator Award. She received the Thomas E. and Jean D. Powers Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Statistics at Ohio State, where she has served on the faculty since 2003. Dr. Calder received her B.A. in mathematics from Northwestern University, and her M.S. and Ph.D. in statistics and decision sciences from Duke University.
Xuming He joined Washington University in July 2023 as the inaugural chair of the Department of Statistics and Data Science. Previously, he served as the H.C. Carver Collegiate Professor of Statistics at the University of Michigan. He is a renowned leader in the fields of robust statistics, quantile regression, Bayesian inference, and post-selection inference; he is also a proponent of interdisciplinary research in data science. Before joining the University of Michigan in 2011, He held positions at the National University of Singapore and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and served as program director of statistics at the National Science Foundation. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Statistical Association. Currently, He serves as President (2023-2025) of the International Statistical Institute. He received his bachelor's of science from Fudan University and his master's (mathematics) and PhD (statistics) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Michael Hudgens is a professor and chair of the Department of Biostatistics at UNC-Chapel Hill. He also serves as the director of the Biostatistics Core of the UNC Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). He has experience in collaborative research and statistical methodology development related to studies of infectious diseases. Professor Hudgens has co-authored more than 300 peer-reviewed papers in statistical journals such as Biometrics, Biometrika, JASA and JRSS-B as well as biomedical journals such as the Lancet, Nature and New England Journal of Medicine. He currently serves as an associate editor for Biometrics. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association and has taught graduate-level biostatistics courses at UNC for over 15 years.
About the Moderator
Elizabeth Slate is a Distinguished Research Professor and Duncan McLean and Pearl Levine Fairweather Professor of Statistics in the Department of Statistics at Florida State University. She received her PhD in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA and joined the faculty at Cornell University in the Department of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering (now Operations Research and Information Engineering) in 1992. Elizabeth's recent research is in longitudinal data analysis, Bayesian modeling and recurrent events, with applications in oral health research, disease biomarkers and other health research areas. Elizabeth is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute. FSU recognized her with the title of Distinguished Research Professor in 2019 and with the Graduate Mentor Award in 2022. She received the Paul Minton Award from the Southern Regional Council on Statistics in 2022.
About the NISS Virtual Career Fair Series
This event is part of the NISS Virtual Career Fair Series: webinars where experienced statisticians from industry, government and academia talk about and provide advice for individuals interested in pursuing a career as a statistician. For more information about these events, please visit: https://www.niss.org/niss-affiliate-virtual-career-fairs
Event Type
- NISS Hosted