A Career in Statistics: Beyond the Numbers

PART I

THE WORK OF A STATISTICIAN

THE PURPOSE of this part of the book is to provide a comprehensive description of what statisticians do in different application areas.

We describe what statisticians do in business and industry (Chapter 2), in official government statistics (Chapter 3), and in various other application areas (Chapter 4). We then comment on the environment in which statisticians work and the challenges they face on the job (Chapter 5). (We defer the major discussion of careers in academia to Chapter 13.)

Our breakdown of areas in which statisticians are engaged is somewhat arbitrary. There is also some overlap. For example, new product development conducted by business and industry (Chapter 2) involves scientific research (Chapter 4). And much scientific research leads to manufactured products (e.g., nanotechnology and molecular pathology) that are likely to be built by industry. Statisticians engaged in gathering, analyzing, and reporting official statistics (Chapter 3) are often doing so as a prelude to formulating regulations, providing information to improve public health, or supporting scientific or social research (Chapter 4). Also, applied statisticians working in any setting may develop new statistical techniques or extend existing one to address problems that they encounter.

A Career in Statistics: Beyond the Numbers, Gerald J. Hahn and Necip Doganaksoy.

© 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Published 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.