Support provided by
Amylin, Amgen, Biogen Idec,
Insightful, Ligand, La Jolla Pharmaceutical,
Minitab, National Search Associates,
ProSanos Corporation, Pfizer,
Salford Systems, Smith Hanley, SPSS,
Suddan, Venturi, PIN, &
SDSU Math & Stats Dept

Images from the day

The fifth annual Statistical Careers Day with fourth annual Poster Competition was held in the Little Theater at San Diego State University on Saturday, April 17, 2004. Despite the inclement weather, approximately 113 people attended. Participating in this year’s event were high school students, and undergraduate and graduate students from 11 different colleges and universities, including University of Texas, Dallas, and 7 San Diego high schools.

The morning began in the Little Theater with welcoming and opening remarks by Dr. Nancy Lo, San Diego Chapter President, followed by an informative and thought-provoking keynote address by Dr. Don Ylvisaker, Professor Emeritus of the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Ylvisaker’s talk touched on the many challenges facing statisticians involved in state lotteries, including the running of official "random" draws, the bulk selling of "randomly" chosen tickets, security issues, sales projections, demographics of players, placement of player terminals, and idiosyncrasies of player behavior.

Right after the keynote address, awards, including cash prizes of $100.00, statistics books, and one-year licenses for statistical software, were presented to the winners of poster competition: Sung Su Kim, Franklin Reed, and Daniel Rosenblatt. A panel discussion entitled “What it’s like to be a statistician” took place with statisticians of varied backgrounds who share a common passion for doing statistical work: Nancy Lo of the Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Sheela Talwalker of Talwalker Consulting, Duane Steffey, professor of statistics at San Diego State University, and Don Ylvisaker, emeritus professor of statistics at the University of California, Los Angeles. The panel spoke about their educational and work experience, their motivations for selecting a career in statistics, the types of projects they have worked on as statisticians, and gave advice regarding careers in statistics.

Lunch in the gardens around the Little Theater was followed by the Career Fair. Participants spent several hours talking with representatives about careers in statistics. Representatives from a wide range of organizations attended, including: Amgen, Amylin, American Statistical Association, Biogen Idec, City of Hope Medical Center, Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, Kaiser Permanente, Pfizer, Power Information Network, Prosanos, Salford Systems, San Diego State University, Southwest Fisheries Science Center, Synteract, Univeristy of Southern California, University of California, Irvine, and University of California, Los Angeles.

We thank the following corporate sponsors for their generous contributions to the Careers Day: Amgen, Amylin, Biogen Idec, La Jolla Pharmaceutical Company, Ligand, National Search Associates, Pfizer, Power Information Network, Prosanos, Salford Systems, San Diego State University, Smith-Hanley, and Venturi Partners. Statistical software and books were generously donated by: Minitab, SUDAAN, SPLUS and SPSS.