April 27, 2009, Research Triangle Park, NC - Jianqiang (Jay) Wang from the Iowa State University will begin work as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) beginning June 1. NISS is a research institution created by the statistics professional societies. Its mission is to identify, catalyze and foster high-impact, cross- disciplinary and cross-sector research involving the statistical sciences.
Wang will join one of three teams at NISS that are collaborating with the National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Together with Professor Balgobin Nandram of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) and Assistant Professor Scott Holan of the University of Missouri and graduate student Griselda Toto from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Wang will address "Statistical Multi-Source Predictive Models and Error Estimates," for implementation in the Major USDA Crop Protection Forecasts and Estimates. He will spend two consecutive summers with the full team at the NISS headquarters in Research Triangle Park, and will continue his research in the interim at NASS in Washington DC. A graduate student from WPI will also be spending the two summers at NISS working on the research project.
Wang will be leaving his position as Visiting Assistant Professor for the Department of Statistics at Colorado State University where he has been working since August 2008. Previously, he was a Research Assistant for the Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology (CSSM) and a Lab Instructor for the Department of Statistics at Iowa State University.
Wang received his Ph.D. in statistics from Iowa State University in July 2008 and his Masters of Science in statistics from the same institution in 2006. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in management science from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2003. He is a member of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS).
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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