Applications and Careers In

Statistics

Purdue University
Science 111 Presentation
March 21, 2005
Outline

 What is Statistics?
 What do statisticians do?
 Statistics in the Community
 Research at Purdue
 Our research interests
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’
Where Can Statisticians Contribute?

 Business and Industry

 Health and Medicine
 Natural Resources and Sciences
 Education
 Government, Media, and Law
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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?
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?
 Statistics in Libraries

 What genres are the

most popular?
 Where should the library
spend its money?
 Does location within the
library affect checkout
rates?
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?
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
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
A Genetic Solution to Poor Protein
Quality
A Genetic Solution to Poor Protein
Quality
How Do You Know It Works?

 What kind of experiment would you do?

 What would you measure?
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?
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)
 ...
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
 ...
Are Families Better Off?

 Studies have been done in communities and

schools in:
 Mexico
 Guatemala
 Brazil
 Ghana
 Ethiopia
 India
Who Needs It Most?
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
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