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408
Comment
David Madiganand WernerStuetzle
GRADUATE
STATISTICS
EDUCATION
The inexorable rise of computing and large-scale
data storage has impacted most academic disciplines,
sometimes in profound ways. Biology, for example,
has become an informationscience where the tools of
data analysis are as commonplace as the microscope.
In astronomy,the study and analysis of vast stellar
databasestakes center stage. In the business arena, financialmarketsgenerateriversof intensely scrutinized
data, and all majorglobal-scale retailersstore and analyze vast quantitiesof customerand transactiondata.
The trendis universaland unstoppable.
Extraordinaryopportunitiesfor statisticalideas and
for statisticiansnow present themselves. However, to
take advantage of the opportunities,statistics has to
change the way in which it recruitsand trainsstudents.
Statisticshas primarilyfocused on squeezing the maximum amountof informationout of limited data. This
paradigmis rapidlydiminishingin importanceand statistics educationfindsitself out of step with reality.The
problems begin at the high school and undergraduate
levels, where the standardcourse includes a narrowset
of pre-computing-eratopics. At the graduatelevel, the
typical statistics programsuffers from the same problem. Most programsfocus primarilyon problems of
estimation and testing, where mathematicsbrilliantly
finesses a paucityof computingpower.The demandfor
graduatesof such programsis real and possibly growing. However, students emerging from our programs
are ill-preparedto engage in cutting-edgeresearchand
409
Comment
MarianthiMarkatouand Bruce Levin
We would like to congratulatethe editors of this
reportfor coherently and succinctly summarizingthe
challenges and opportunitiesfor the field of statistics
as we enter the twenty-firstcentury.The reportis the
culminationof discussions that took place during the
workshop held in May 2002 at the National Science
Foundation(NSF). The purposeof this workshopwas
to assess the currentstatus of the field of statistics, to
identify the challenges and opportunitiesthat statistics
faces and to develop a strategyfor how to position the
field to meet its currentandfuturedemands.This report
also clarifiesthe often misunderstoodrole of the statistical sciences and illustratesits position in, and impact
on, the scientific enterprise.
Three main themes are addressed in the report:
(1) a wealth of interestingand difficultresearchproblems generated by the interaction of statistics with
other subject-matterareas, (2) education and (3) resourcerequirementsto meet researchneeds andeducaMarianthi Markatou is Associate Professor,
Department of Biostatistics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA (e-mail:
mm]68@columbia.edu). Bruce Levin is Professor
and Chair, Department of Biostatistics, Columbia
University, New York, NY 10032, USA (e-mail:
bruce.levin@biostat.columbia.edu).