Applications and Careers In Statistics

1. Applications and Careers In Statistics Purdue University Science 111 Presentation March 21, 2005

2. Outline • What is Statistics? • What do statisticians do? • Statistics in the Community • Research at Purdue • Our research interests

3. What is Statistics? • ‘The science of collecting, organizing, and interpreting numerical facts’ • ‘The science of understanding data and making decisions in the face of uncertainty’ • ‘The art of making numerical conjectures about puzzling questions’ • ‘The construction of useful information out of data’

4. Where Can Statisticians Contribute? • Business and Industry • Health and Medicine • Natural Resources and Sciences • Education • Government, Media, and Law

5. Business and Industry • Manufacturing • Improve product quality • Increase efficiency of processes • Marketing • Conduct sample surveys • Determine product viability • Engineering • Make consistent product • Predict product life • Computing • Software design and development • Efficient implementation of complex analytic tools

6. Health and Medicine • Epidemiology • Calculate cancer incidence rates • Monitor disease outbreaks • Public Health • Design community efforts • Education programs • Pharmacology • Drug discovery, development, and approval • Ensure validity of results in clinical trials • Genetics • Identify potential indicators for specific diseases or traits • Develop effective plant and animal breeding strategies

7. Natural Resources and Sciences • Agriculture • Study pesticides to maximize crop yield • Evaluate differences in crop management • Ecology • Study changes in local and global climate • Develop strategies to improve the environment • Chemistry • Predict shape of large molecules • Analysis of mass spectrometry data • Biology • Seek to better understand why insects cluster • Identify genes related to a particular disease

8. Education • Develop effective teaching strategies • Research appropriate and informative evaluation (testing) instruments • Identify risk factors for bullying, dropping out, failing • Help students acquire quantitative reasoning skills

9. Government, Media, and Law • Government Agencies • Design and implement effective sampling strategies • Estimate the U.S. unemployment rate • Track and report changes in the economy • Regulations on stock trading, drug approval, pollution • Journalism • Effective communication of statistical ideas to a broad audience • Participation in education efforts • Expert Witness • Testify in court cases involving DNA evidence, salary discrepancies, discrimination, and disease clusters

10. Skills Needed By Statisticians • Quantitative Skills • Statistics, Mathematics, Science • Problem-Solving Skills • Analysis, Teamwork • Communication Skills • Verbal, Written • Computer Programming • Foundation in Field of Application

11. What is STATCOM? • A student-run volunteer organization to provide free statistical expertise to the local community • Primarily graduate students in Purdue Department of Statistics • Work with local non-profit and government groups • An opportunity to develop consulting, leadership, teamwork, and communication skills

12. Statistics in Local Government • Sagamore Parkway Task Force • How should Sagamore Parkway be improved to make it safer and more attractive to residents and new businesses? • West Lafayette Strategic Plan • What should the city’s priorities be and where should it spend taxpayers’ money?

13. Statistics in the Schools • Are state funds allocated fairly across school districts? • Do schools perform differently on standardized tests, and if so, why? • How can teachers identify students needing extra help?

14. Statistics in Libraries • What genres are the most popular? • Where should the library spend its money? • Does location within the library affect checkout rates?

15. Statistics in Community Organizations • How effective are a rehabilitation center’s programs? • Why is there high staff turnover at some organizations? • How can an organization increase the response rate of a survey? • Which community services should be expanded?

16. Benefits of STATCOM • Provide students with hands-on experience • Improve relations between university and local community • Assist local organizations that would not normally seek statistical consulting services • Allow students to give back to the local community

17. Statistical Consulting at Purdue: Samples Advice on experimental design and analysis for: • Determining the best balance of corn and soy in the diets of lambs in Tunisia to maximize Nitrogen retention and body weight gain • Evaluating the effects of different weed control strategies on the growth of new hardwood forest growth in Alabama • Investigating how cockroaches’ past diets affect what baits they find most appealing

18. Fields of Statistics Research at Purdue • Health and Nutrition • Bioinformatics • Computational Methods • Computational Finance • Mathematical Physics • Quality Control

19. Research Example – Microarrays • Study gene expression levels in different conditions (e.g., cancer vs. noncancer) • Labs use this technology to identify genes related to a particular condition

20. Statistical Issues with Microarrays • Accounting for different sources of variability • Measuring gene expression levels • Combining results from multiple laboratories • Massive data sets • Multiple testing • Visualization techniques • Defining significance

21. Different Results From Multiple Microarray Studies • Need to reconcile differences between labs’ results

22. Combining Results From Multiple Microarray Studies • Meta-analysis • ‘The analysis of analyses’ • Research synthesis • Accounting for known differences between experiments • Dependence structure • Experiments from the same lab, for example • Efficient implementation • Analyze all 13,000 genes (mouse data) quickly

23. Tackling Malnutrition in Young Children • Corn is a staple food in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia • The quality of protein in corn is poor • Malnutrition is a common problem in places where corn is the main source of food

24. A Genetic Solution to Poor Protein Quality

25. A Genetic Solution to Poor Protein Quality

26. How Do You Know It Works? • What kind of experiment would you do? • What would you measure?

27. Quantifying the Nutritional Benefits • Does the body take up the protein? • Does it lead to better health and growth in children? • Are families who eat QPM instead of regular corn better off?

28. Does the Body Take Up the Protein? • Six children in Guatemala fed QPM or milk (1969) • Eight children in Peru fed QPM, regular corn, or milk protein (1980) • Another six children in Peru fed QPM, regular corn, or milk protein (1989) • ...

29. Does It Lead to Better Health and Growth? • Twenty children in Peru fed QPM or milk formula (1990) • 134 children in India (1977), but the study wasn’t published • ...

30. Are Families Better Off? • Studies have been done in communities and schools in: • Mexico • Guatemala • Brazil • Ghana • Ethiopia • India

31. Who Needs It Most?

32. Summary • Statistics is a widely-used tool in virtually all fields of science and technology • There are substantial open research questions in statistics, and there is great room for growth • Statistical consulting at Purdue serves both on-campus researchers and non-profit organizations in the local community • You can develop the necessary skills to become a statistician or to use statistical tools in your field of interest

33. Thank You! • References: • Samuels and Witmer (1999). Statistics for the Life Sciences. • Freedman, Pisani, and Purves (1998). Statistics. • Moore and McCabe (1999). Introduction to the Practice of Statistics. • Careers in Statistics: A World of Opportunity. Presented by the American Statistical Association, available at www.amstat.org/careers/Stat_Careers.ppt • Purdue University Department of Statistics