Resent-Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 13:14:20 +1000 (EST) Resent-From: anzstat-error@qut.edu.au Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 14:05:55 +1200 From: Murray Jorgensen Subject: Where do NZ statisticians work? X-Sender: maj@pop.stats.waikato.ac.nz To: anzstat@qut.edu.au I posted this message earlier: "It occurs to me that I could better answer questions from students and others about what sorts of jobs are open to Statisticians in NZ if I knew this at least as far as members of this list are concerned. What I would like is for NZ statisticians outside the universities to send me 3 or 4 lines about: - who they work for? - what kind of work they do? [being suitably vague if these questions are at all "commercially sensitive"]. I will summarize and post to the list." Thanks to Mike Camden, Ian West, Rob Crawford, Maree.Luckman, Roger Littlejohn, Hans Hockey, Alistair Dunn, Dave Saville, John Koolaard, Rhonda Hooper, Garry Dickinson, Ken Dodds, Chris Francis, James Reilly, Elisabeth Wells, Andrew Stevenson and Harold Henderson for their informative responses. I surely won't need to point out to this audience the biases implicit in a self-selected survey such as this, but I suppose you are all well-furnished with the necessary caveats against over-interpretation of data like this. The irony is that if this sort of exercise were not so cheap and easy to carry out there would be much more work out there for us! Wherever they work, statisticians seem to become involved in educating their co-workers in the use of statistics, so you can pretty much add this on to anything below. Crown Research Institutes [7 respondents from AgResearch, NIWA, Crop & Food] These still seem to be the largest employer of nonacademic statisticians. Agricultural Statisticians still work mostly in the traditional heartland of experimental design and analysis using linear models although genetics was also mentioned. Fisheries modellers take on a broader range of problems: "Fisheries population modelling, simulation and MC studies of biological relationships, impacts of behaviour of fisheries etc. Experimental design of (for example) growth rate studies, mortality rate studies, etc. Complex survey design (acoustic surveys of fish populations), and subsequent survey analysis. Spatial analysis mostly of a kriging and surface fitting nature. A reasonable inferential and theoretical statistics ability is also required in order to extend existing theory to fit some of the less standard analyses that crop up." (Alistair Dunn). Some statisticians are getting into new areas of work as changing CRI structures put new groups of researchers into the same organisation. Industry-funded research groups [3 respondents from Dairy Research {Institute, Corporation}] Similar to the CRIs, but a mention of sensory data, calibration and measurement questions. Medical Research [2 respondents] In NZ this tends to be associated with University Medical Schools and their clinical offshoots so the non-university thrust of my question may have reduced the response here. Funding is from the Health Research Council. "Statistical positions within research groups such as Clinical Trials Units, Injury Prevention Units or other larger research projects are also places where students might become employed." (Elisabeth Wells) Readers may also be interested in overseas opportunities in the pharmaceutical industry: "Short-term contracts in the pharmaceutical industry, providing biometric input to new drug application made in the US and Europe and to other areas of clinical research and publication, mainly by supporting permanent staff statisticians." (Hans Hockey) Independent Consulting [2 respondents] Several government departments are purchasing statistical consulting from independent consultants. Project design and oversight, especially survey design. Statistics New Zealand [0 respondents] But I know that they're out there! Market Research [2 respondents] Survey design, analysis and interpretation. Multivariate analysis. Polytech Teaching [1 respondent] "I create a learning environment for people who need practical basic skills in Stats. I also provide some support for people whose investigations involve quantitative data." (Mike Camden) As part of a background study for MORST Prof Bryan Manly has written an article describing the employment of statisticians, focusing on those whose job has a research content. (Although because of the endless variety of real-world problems, just about every applied statistics job tends to have research content!). The article is at http://www.morst.govt.nz/pubs/kbaserep/math.htm Also take a look at Gordon Smyth's web page http://www.maths.uq.edu.au/~gks/webguide/employ.html which has a lot of interesting information about the Australian scene. By the way, if you are doing something interesting in your consulting work or in your teaching, take the trouble to write it up and send it to the ANZJS. We are still short of applied articles. Even if your first draft is not publishable, I try to ensure that authors get useful feedback to enable a revised article to be publishable. Murray Jorgensen Dr Murray Jorgensen http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/stats/Staff/maj.html Department of Statistics, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand *Applications Editor, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics* maj@waikato.ac.nz Phone +64-7 838 4773 home phone 856 6705 Fax 838 4666