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About Our Graduate Program

The Department of Statistics offers an exciting and revamped graduate program that prepares students for cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in a wide variety of fields. The field of statistics has become a core component of research in the biological, physical, and social sciences, as well as in traditional computer science domains such as artificial intelligence. In light of this, the Department of Statistics is currently undergoing a major expansion of approximately ten new faculty into fields of Computational and Applied Mathematics. The massive increase in the data acquired, through scientific measurement on one hand and through web-based collection on the other, makes the development of statistical analysis and prediction methodologies more relevant than ever. Our graduate program aims to prepare students to address these issues through rigorous training in theory, methodology, and applications of statistics, rigorous training in scientific computation, and research projects in core methodology of statistics and computation as well as in a wide variety of interdisciplinary fields.

The Department of Statistics offers two tracks of graduate study, one leading to the Master of Science (M.S.) degree, the other to the Doctorate of Philosophy (Ph.D.). The M.S. degree is a professional degree—students who receive this degree are prepared for nonacademic careers in which the use of advanced statistical and computational methods is of central importance. The program also prepares students for possible further graduate study.

During the first year of the Ph.D. program, students are given a thorough grounding in material that forms the foundations of modern statistics and scientific computation, including data analysis, mathematical statistics, probability theory, applied probability and modeling, and computational methods. Throughout the entire program students attend a weekly consulting seminar where researchers from across the University come to get advice on modeling, statistical analysis, and computation. This seminar is often the source of interesting and ongoing research projects.

In the second year, students have a wide range of choices of topics they can pursue further, based on their interests, through advanced courses and reading courses with faculty. During the second year, students will typically identify their subfield of interest, take some advanced courses in the subject, and interact with the relevant faculty members. The Department maintains very strong connections to numerous other units on campus, either through joint appointments of the faculty or through ongoing collaborations. Students have easy access to faculty in other departments, which allows them to expand their interactions and develop new interdisciplinary research projects. Examples include joint projects with Human Genetics, Ecology and Evolution, Neurobiology, Chemistry, Economics, Health Studies, and Astronomy.