Tennessee Chapter Introduces High-School Students to Statistics

As part of a member initiative award from the ASA, members of the West Tennessee Chapter (WTASA) and graduate students in statistics at the University of Memphis visited Central High School and White Station High School on consecutive Fridays in October to host several sessions designed to introduce local high-school students to the many opportunities in the field of statistics.

• Working statisticians visit local classrooms to share information about statistics careers and their experiences being a statistician
• “Bring a Student to Work Day,” in which WTASA statisticians are paired with interested students and invite the students to shadow them for a day or more

Hui Zhang, president of WTASA; biostatisticians at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital; Joyce Jiang, vice president of WTASA; biostatisticians in the school of public health at the University of Memphis; and Dale Bowman, chapter representative and assistant professor at the University of Memphis, visited statistics and applied math classes at the two high schools.

Also visiting were WTASA members Fridtjof Thomas from UT Health Science Center, Jun Shi from AutoZone, and Chris Pfeiffer from Tegra Analytics to share their experiences as working statisticians.

Graduate students in statistics at the University of Memphis Robert Vaughn, John Appiah Kubi, Yunusa Olufadi, Camden Harrell, and Andrew Ott were on hand to give a student’s perspective of studying statistics beyond high school.

During the one-hour presentation, students had the chance to ask questions and interact with local statisticians and students as they learned about the various branches of statistics, the average salaries statisticians earn, the skills needed to be a statistician, and the importance of statisticians in the world today.

Students are being recruited for the second part of the program, where they will shadow volunteer WTASA mentors to see what a typical statistician’s day looks like. These students will then work with their mentors to prepare a poster highlighting their experience that they will have the opportunity to enter into a poster contest.

ASA members and groups are invited to submit proposals for initiatives that support the mission of the association. For information about 2018 initiatives, visit the ASA website.