April 28, 2009, Research Triangle Park, NC - Patricia Gunning from University of Limerick has been hired as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) beginning June 1. NISS is a research institution created by the statistical professional societies with support from a consortium of North Carolina universities. Its mission is to identify, catalyze and foster high-impact, cross- disciplinary and crosssector research involving the statistical sciences.
Gunning will join one of three teams at NISS that are collaborating with the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Gunning, together with Professor Linda Young of the University of Florida and Associate Professor Pamela Arroway of North Carolina State University, will address "New Statistical Editing and Imputation Methods that Preserve Data Quality," for implementation in the Quarterly Agricultural Survey. Gunning will spend two consecutive summers with the full team at the NISS headquarters in Research Triangle Park, and will continue her research during the rest of the year at NASS in Washington DC. A graduate student from the University of Florida will also be spending the two summers at NISS working on the research project. Most recently, Gunning was a Lecturer in statistics and an assistant statistical consultant for the University of Limerick in Ireland. She received her Ph.D. in statistics from Dublin City University in Dublin, Ireland in 2006. Her dissertation was titled "Stratification of Skewed Populations." In 2000, she obtained her Bachelor of Science degree in computer applications from Dublin City University. She also received her Teacher's Diploma in information communication technology from Dorset College in 2002.
About NISS
The National Institute of Statistical Sciences was established in 1990 by the national statistics societies and the Research Triangle universities and organizations, with the mission to identify, catalyze and foster high-impact, cross-disciplinary and cross-sector research involving the statistical sciences. NISS is dedicated to strengthening and serving the national statistics community, most notably by catalyzing community members' participation in applied research driven by challenges facing government and industry. NISS also provides career development opportunities for statisticians and scientists, especially those in the formative stages of their careers. NISS is located in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. For more information about the NISS, go to www.niss.org.
About USDA/NASS
The National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is the survey and estimation arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. NASS conducts hundreds of surveys each year and conducts a Census of Agriculture every five years. These national surveys, in combination with various sources of available administrative data, form a rich data basis for forecasting/estimating a broad array of farm and rural characteristics covering virtually every aspect of U.S. agriculture. Production and supplies of food and fiber, prices paid and received by farmers, farm labor and wages, farm finances, chemical use, and changes in the demographics of U.S. producers are some examples of the statistical data gathered by NASS.
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