Panel Members Share Career Path with Undergraduates

Seven biostatisticians/statisticians and three graduate students came to Haverford College in Pennsylvania November 3, 2018, to share their career paths, research projects, and overall experiences with local undergraduate students. The panelists came from various pharmaceutical companies, consulting firms, and universities. Six biostatistics and statistics department chairs or graduate program directors also introduced their graduate programs during the event.

From Left: Jordan Dworkin, Joanna Harton, Nick Illenberger, Yong Chen, Chis Schmid, and Jingwei Wu

Three presentations were given, titled “Life as a Biostatistician/Statistician in Industry,” “Life as a Biostatistician/Statistician in Academia,” and “Graduate Programs in Biostatistics/Statistics.”

From left: Jesse Berlin, Bill Huber, Jen McGinniss, and Will Fairley

Besides giving presentations, panelists also had lunch with participants and answered questions.

The event was sponsored by the ASA’s Biometrics Section and Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center of Haverford College.

James Cochran

James Cochran, professor and associate dean for research at the Culverhouse College of Business, University of Alabama, was recently honored by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) with its 2018 President’s Award for his high-impact initiatives that have improved the global education of operations research, analytics, and statistics.

Cochran, a 2014 ASA Founder Award recipient, has led a distinguished career as an educator and researcher for more than 20 years. He developed and leads a teaching effectiveness colloquium series, which introduces teachers in 14 developing nations to state-of-the-art educational methods, including distance learning, collaborative learning, active learning, and project-based learning.

Cochran is also the founding editor-in-chief of the Wiley Encyclopedia of Operations Research and Management Science, which is a 6,000+-page reference containing more than 600 articles written by eminent scholars and available online for free in developing nations. The articles published in the encyclopedia are used in classrooms, to address applications, and as reference sources for research articles and literature surveys.

Cochran also served two terms as editor-in-chief of INFORMS Transactions on Education, which publishes open-access teaching materials, including cases. During his tenure, teaching materials were provided to instructors from more than 100 countries.

The INFORMS President’s Award is to recognize, and thereby encourage, important contributions to the welfare of society by members of our profession at the local, national, or global level. Achievements suitable for this recognition may be in technical or scientific education or in paid or voluntary consulting or management (commercial, academic, governmental, or nonprofit). The award is given each year at the national meeting.

For information about the award and INFORMS, visit their website. You can also watch Cochran’s short talk on YouTube.