This month’s guest columnist, Clifford Spiegelman, makes a strong case for more rigor and statistics in forensic science and also calls for a new agency to lead the way. Here he urges fellow statisticians to help realize the changes many deem necessary.

Guest columnist, Sami Huovilainen, discusses how statistical tools are applied in the financial services industry and how the rapid increase in accessible data has resulted in the growing need for analysts with expertise in statistics.

In his column this month, ASA Director of Science Policy Steve Pierson discusses other agencies’ progress on autonomy, stature, and leadership.

In his column this month, ASA Research and Graduate Education Manager Keith Crank discusses fiscal year 2010 appropriations and what funds are in store for statisticians.

This month’s guest columnists, both ASA Fellows, write about the need for measurement to play a stronger role in economics and suggest a cultural shift in this field is necessary to realize such a change.

Kathleen Kiernan, a senior statistician for SAS, discusses how a statistician with a master’s degree has many opportunities in the technical support division of any software company.

For this month’s column, ASA Director of Science Policy Steve Pierson invited representatives from the ASA’s Section on Statistics in Defense and National Security to be his guest authors. Members of this section have made outreach to policymakers an integral part of their activities, with significant strides. Here, they share their progress to date and their plans for the future.

In his column this month, ASA Research and Graduate Education Manager Keith Crank discusses two issues that are important to the biostatistics community: the need for more funding to train the next generation of biostatisticians and the need for more funding for methodological research in biostatistics.

Are the federal statistical agencies in the United States meeting the needs of their many users? Surveys required for policy purposes in health, education, labor, and other areas are being conducted with well-tested statistical designs that so far have reasonable margins of error. But what about the future?

It is widely assumed that you need a PhD in statistics to teach applied statistics in an industrial setting. However, many teaching jobs in industrial settings require only a master’s degree in statistics. A career as a statistical instructor can be rewarding, as you continually learn new statistical methods and obtain personal satisfaction knowing you are helping professionals solve problems.