COMMITTEE CORNER
Career Development
Attendees Give Career Seminar
Positive Rating
Fang Liu, JSM 2008 Career Development Seminar Coordinator
Committee on Career Development
attending a future career development sem- been a professor in the math and statistics
inar at a future JSM.” The survey results department of Williams College. DeVeaux
also showed that the seminar attracted
is a Fellow of the ASA and was named
attendees with various backgrounds—
Statistician of the Year by the Boston
mathematical statisticians, applied statis-
Chapter of the ASA earlier this year. As a
ticians, and students from academia, gov-
token of appreciation, the CCD presented
ernment, and industry/business. The age
him with an honorarium of $1,000 and an
of the attendees ranged from 26–65, and
ASA certificate authorized by CCD Chair
about 50% of them were female.
Janet Myhre.
DeVeaux holds bachelor’s degrees in
Members of the CCD are searching for a
civil engineering and mathematics from
Princeton, a master’s degree in physical
topic and speaker for next year’s career devel-
education from Stanford, and a PhD in sta-
opment seminar at JSM in Washington,
tistics from Stanford. He has taught at the
DC. If you are interested or have a sugges-
Wharton School and Princeton University
tion for a topic or speaker, contact Fang Liu
DeVeaux School of Engineering. Since 1994, he has
at
fang_liu@merck.com. n
R
ichard DeVeaux from Williams
College gave an excellent seminar
on career development August 3 at
JSM in Denver. The title of his talk was
“Plain Talk and Active Listening: What
Every Statistician Should Know About
Teaching Statistics to Nonstatisticians.”
The seminar marked the fifth anniversary
of the career development seminar series,
which is sponsored by the ASA’s Committee
on Career Development (CCD).
The talk offered a comprehensive list of
lessons learned from teaching statistics to
nonstatisticians. (Teaching in this context
includes classroom teaching, statistical con-
sulting, etc.) The list included learning to
talk to others; just because you can fly, don’t
forget to walk (don’t show off your expe-
rience); what’s the problem (listen to the
client and help them understand the prob-
lem); and communicating without Greek
(teach statistics conversationally). Real-life
examples and advice were given based on
DeVeaux’s personal experience.
About 80 people attended the seminar,
and about 30 returned the survey provid-
ed. All the responses rated “very satisfied”
or “satisfied” with the content and speak-
er, and all responders circled “consider
NOVEMBER 2008 AMSTAT NEWS 35
AMSTAT November 08.indd 35 10/24/08 2:28:28 PM
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84