For Today's Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics

08/05/09 New York Times Technology
By Steve Lohr

The rising stature of statisticians, who can earn $125,000 at top companies in their first year after getting a doctorate, is a byproduct of the explosion of digital data.

Read the full article at nytimes.com.

There's more good news for Statistics graduates, read "5 College Majors That Can Help You Get a Job" from smartmoney.com.

Alumni Profile - Ping Ma

Written by: Meghan Honerlaw, M.S. candidate in Statistics

M.S. 2001, Ph.D. 2003
Assistant Professor of Statistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Ping Ma began his statistical career in China with an undergraduate degree in Economical Mathematics. His undergraduate studies included some statistics courses, but he found that mathematical finance piqued his interest more. Ma chose to continue his education at Purdue University in the Mathematical Finance program, but after his first year, he realized he was more interested in statistics.

After his realization Ma became a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Statistics. "The Department of Statistics offered very solid training in both theoretical and applied statistics," Ma commented. As a student looking for a niche in the statistical world, he found the seminars offered by the department enlightening. "Several series of seminars provided a channel for students to access the most current research topics and practice in the statistics community. I remember that we had Graduate Student Organization meetings each month, which consisted of a talk given by a faculty member and a student. It helped me choose my thesis advisor and find my research topic."

He chose to study non-parametric mixed-effect models with an application to longitudinal data with Prof. Chong Gu. It was another seminar series, this time given by statisticians from Eli Lilly, that helped Ma decide that he wanted to pursue a career in academia. After hearing the statisticians’ job descriptions, Ma realized that he was better suited to academia than industry.

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Undergraduate Student Profile - Jackie Keller

Written by: Meghan Honerlaw, M.S. candidate in Statistics

As a success driven actuarial student, Jacqueline (Jackie) Keller has had to slow down a bit in order to take advantage of every opportunity Purdue offers its undergraduates. Jackie was born and raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana and was introduced to actuarial science at a young age, "I was practically born as an actuary. Not only did my father chant derivatives to me while in the womb, but he is an actuary, as is his mother. However, I did not pick actuarial science as my major purely due to genetics. I researched other majors and actuarial science was the best fit. I felt that a career as a lawyer didn’t use enough math, and I didn’t enjoy building things or physics enough to be an engineer. I like actuarial science because it is applied mathematics combined with finance and risk management."

Usually, the decision of where to go to school is an easier one to make than what subject to study. Jackie had made her selection of a major but her next decision was to find a school that would give her the best foundation to be a successful actuary. Jackie knew she wanted to stay in-state for college and found that Purdue offered the strongest in-state actuarial science program, not to mention, "Purdue also had a wide range of other related majors just in case I decided to change!" Jackie commented.

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Sponsored program awards in the college up 18 percent

Sponsored research activity for 2008-09 in the College of Science has increased, both in terms of dollars and number of proposals awarded, according to new numbers released by university.

Program awards in the college were $61.5 million in 2008-09, compared to $52 million in 2007-08, an increase of more than 18 percent. The number of awards increased by 8.3 percent during that periods, from 532 to 576. The overall growth includes an increase in Discovery Park-associated awards, from $8 million (26 awards) in 2007-08 to $11.9 million (42 awards) in 2008-09.

Support from federal agencies grew from $45.6 million to $53.3 million, an increase of 17 percent. Corporate support grew 51 percent, from $3.9 million in 2007-08 to $5.9 million in the 2008-09 fiscal year.

Sponsored programs are defined as research and educational activities funded at least in part by external sponsors with the expectation of a defined outcome.