Through the Dark Forest of Data
What do Russian language education, the epidemiology of Turkey, microbiology, engineering, and nutrition sciences have to do with each other? At first these may seem like discordant subjects, but for Noah Feldman, a statistics doctoral candidate, these topics represent individuals he has worked with as a graduate consultant at the Statistical Consulting Center (SCC).
Comprised of a team of faculty, staff, and graduate students in the Department of Statistics, the center has provided statistical support to those within and beyond Penn State since the 1960s.
"My team of consultants can assist researchers at any stage of their project, offering guidance on research planning, experimental design, survey sampling, statistical modeling, and results interpretation," said Maggie Niu, professor of statistics and director of the SCC.
Graduate students involved in the SCC are introduced to the center via a two-course educational pedagogical model. First, students enroll in STAT 580 Statistical Consulting Practicum I, where they learn the fundamentals of statistical consulting, including how to conduct a consulting meeting, effective communication skills, scientific writing, and ethics. Students observe live sessions with clients and work in groups to come up with the best solution that meets the client’s needs and available time scale, which will be provided to the consultee in a written report.
Then, in the following semester, students take STAT 581 Statistical Consulting Practicum II, where they work as consultants, regularly meeting with researchers to discuss the statistical design, analysis, and computation aspects required for their projects. Students ultimately complete a capstone project modeled after a consulting report. For master’s students, this capstone project is considered their graduation project.
“The Statistical Consulting Center provides graduate students in statistics with invaluable experiences where they are working on problems that come not from a textbook, but from real people with real goals,” said Ephraim Hanks, professor of statistics who has taught the practicum courses. “This experience gives graduate students an understanding of how statistics works in practice that prepares them for future work in industry, consulting, and academia. The larger research community at Penn State also gets access to statistical expertise from these graduate students and their mentoring faculty. Having on-demand consulting helps dozens of graduate students and faculty by giving them access to statistical experts when they need it.”
All master’s and doctoral students in the department take the practicum courses with the SCC, which, Niu said, helps develop communication and project management skills and provides a valuable opportunity to collaborate with researchers outside of statistics. Some students choose to continue consulting with the SCC as research assistants after completing these courses.
Working as a graduate consultant at the SCC, Feldman helps advise scientists from across the university on how they can navigate their data, identify a research question, and provide feedback on their analysis plan.
“Helping clients traverse the dark forest of their data and seeing them light up when we reach a solution is my favorite part,” he said.