During a reception hosted by the department of biostatistics, ASA president-elect Bob Rodriguez meets with Pittsburgh Chapter members, including some longtime ASA members and Pittsburgh Chapter officers.

Bob Rodriguez, the ASA president-elect and a senior director of R&D at SAS Institute, visited the department of biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh on September 29, 2011. As an invited speaker in the Biostatistical Seminar Series, Rodriguez gave a presentation titled “Business Analytics: Buzzword or Bonanza for the Statistics Profession?” to an audience of about 100 local statisticians and students.

Rodriguez shared his perspectives on opportunities for statisticians in the business world and described related trends such as distributed computing, use of unstructured data, and text mining. He also discussed emerging roles for statisticians and provided valuable career advice for graduate students, such as planning early, preparing for high-demand areas, and joining the ASA. He concluded with ideas about how the statistics profession should respond, including presidential initiatives that will be undertaken in 2012. As part of his visit, Rodriguez also met with more than a dozen graduate students for an in-depth discussion of career success factors.

During a subsequent reception hosted by the department of biostatistics, Rodriguez interacted with Pittsburgh Chapter members, including some longtime ASA members and Pittsburgh Chapter officers: Sally Morton (ASA past president), Allan Sampson, Jay Kadane, Roslyn Stone, Stewart Anderson, Amy Phelps, Abdus Wahed (chapter president-elect), and Gong Tang (chapter representative).

Participants at the reception enjoyed an informative exchange of ideas about the current status of the chapter and future challenges for the ASA and chapter.