RESOURCES

Posts from Sherri

• Economic Diversity and the Academy: Statistical Science

• I Don't Work 80 Hours a Week as a Tenure-Track Faculty Member

• Academic Cover Letters for Statistical Science Faculty Positions

• Academic CVs for Statistical Science Faculty Positions

Short Courses

Materials from selected courses appear here.

College Students

Summer Programs

Interested in graduate school for (bio)statistics, machine learning, bioinformatics, health policy, population health, or health services research? Consider applying to these summer programs to learn more:

• We launched the Stanford Population Health Summer Research Program, Advancing Health Equity and Diversity (AHEaD), for community college and undergraduate students from underrepresented and historically excluded groups. (I am a founding Co-Director of AHEaD and typically mentor 2 visiting students each summer.)

• The Summer Institute in Biostatistics (SIBS) has six participating institutions across the United States. (I attended SIBS at Boston University during its inaugural summer in 2004.)

• Harvard has two for students from underrepresented backgrounds: the Summer Program in Biostatistics & Computational Biology (SPBCB) and the FACETS Program for undergraduates broadly interested in public health, including quantitative population science and health policy. (I was a faculty mentor for SPBCB in summer 2016, view their presentation; I was a faculty mentor for both programs in summer 2017.)

• University of Michigan's Big Data Summer Institute introduces undergraduates to big data and public health.

• The Summer Undergraduate Minority Research (SUMR) program run by the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics at University of Pennsylvania introduces students from underrepresented backgrounds to health services research.

• Does machine learning pique your interest? Take a look at the Advances of Machine Learning in Theory & Applications summer research experience for undergraduates sponsored by NSF.

• UCLA has the Bruins in Genomics summer research experience focused on genomics and bioinformatics.

• The Summer Internship for Indigenous Peoples in Genomics (SING) is a week-long workshop that aims to increase the number of indigenous peoples in STEM and discuss the "uses, misuses, and limitations of genomics as a tool for indigenous peoples' communities."

• The ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research offers training in statistics, research methods, and data analysis across the social, behavioral, and medical sciences.

Alexander Asemota (formerly at Howard University, now at UC Berkeley) has created a great list of summer programs in statistical science, bioinformatics, and computer science that contains many more opportunities!

Post-Bachelor Fellowship programs may also be of interest, such as the fellowship at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Graduate Students

NIH has a predoctoral funding program for individual scholars. Current doctoral students are eligible to apply.

The NSF has a Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) that provides considerable funding for successful applicants. Potential fellows can begin applying during their final year of undergraduate training. First year graduate students also remain eligible for the NSF GRFP.

Deciding between academia, industry, and government for your post-graduation plans? Check out the ASA's annual internship listing to sample another sector over the summer.

Consider applying for Joint Statistical Meetings student travel awards, the Gertrude M. Cox Scholarship, and the Lingzi Lu Memorial Award. Two dissertation fellowship programs include the Josephine De Karman Fellowship Trust and the AAUW American Fellowships Program. Your university likely has internal awards as well, and your program coordinator may be able to give you more information.

Postdoctoral Scholars

Both NIH and NSF have PI-level fellowships appropriate for postdoctoral scholars who work in the statistical sciences. The Amstat News published several interviews on federal funding for postdoctoral scholars, including my experience as an NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellow.

Diversity

There are a number of conferences, meetings, and workshops focused on diversity, including the Field of Dreams Conference, SACNAS National Conference, StatFest, National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity Workshops, ASA Women in Statistics and Data Science Conference, Women in Data Science Conference, and the Faculty Women of Color in the Academy National Conference.

Additionally, the AHEaD, Summer Program in Biostatistics & Computational Biology, FACETS Program, SUMR Program, and SING discussed above recruit students from underrepresented and historically excluded backgrounds.

The National Alliance for Doctoral Studies in the Mathematical Sciences has mentoring and graduate application programs, among their other initiatives (including the Field of Dreams Conference).

Job Seeking

I found the job listings at the ASA, University of Florida Department of Statistics, and Florida State University Department of Statistics to be the most helpful during my job search for 2013. They post academic, industry, and government positions from bachelor's to PhD level. There are many other sites.

I wrote a guest article for Simply Statistics on Navigating Big Data Careers with a Statistics PhD.

Policy Fellowships

These unique opportunities recruit both new PhDs and experienced mid-career scientists. The AAAS Science and Technology Fellowship has programmatic areas in "Health, Education & Human Services" and an initiative in "Big Data & Analytics," among others. The California Council on Science and Technology has a similar fellowship that integrates scholars into the California Legislature. There are also several policy fellowships through the ASA.