UA News

UA professor Walter W. Piegorsch is one of the first in the nation to gain professional statistician accreditation from the American Statistical Association – a benchmark for the new Graduate Interdisciplinary Program in statistics housed at the BIO5 Institute.

The American Statistical Association recently created an accreditation program for professional statisticians, and University of Arizona professor Walter W. Piegorsch is one of the first in the nation to gain accreditation.

Accreditation signals recognition of advanced statistical training and knowledge; experience in applying statistical expertise competently; maintenance of appropriate professional development; agreement to abide by accepted standards of statistical practice and the ability to communicate effectively.

Piegorsch said obtaining accreditation was important to him as the chair of the UA's new Graduate Interdisciplinary Program, or GIDP, in statistics, since it serves as a benchmark for the level of professional development expected of future statisticians.

Piegorsch's lab lies within the BIO5 Institute offices – another signal indicating the program's value in modern research. The GIDP was created in 2007 to fill statistical needs among many of the UA's and Arizona's research programs.

"There are simply not enough statisticians to go around and fill the needs of academia, industry or government," Piegorsch said.

As data-acquisition technologies in modern digital computing have become faster and more powerful, the need to understand the data, identify patterns and clarify any uncertainty has created a boom in the statistics field.

The new accreditation effort will help to externally authenticate credentials of professional statisticians who work in these areas.

Through the UA program, statisticians are trained at the master's and doctoral level.

Similar to other UA GIDPs, the program pulls faculty members from various units across the campus. Faculty in the department of mathematics contributes theoretical and methodological expertise in statistics through course offerings, student mentoring/advising and statistical research collaborations.

Similar contributions come from faculty in the division of epidemiology; biostatistics, where the focus is on biostatistical research derived from practical applications in the biosciences.

Coupled with these, the UA's new Statistical Consulting Laboratory – also housed in BIO5 – provides a perspective for actual, hands-on statistical consulting and collaborative interaction.

The UA statistics program came to life with the recruitment of Piegorsch four years ago.

The program started with only three graduate students and currently has 21 enrolled in its various curricula. The program itself was built to meet national and statewide needs.

Though the foundation of statistics is in the mathematical sciences, the interdisciplinary aspect of the program is pivotal, Piegorsch said.

"Modern statisticians will be working with a variety of data, in fields such as medicine, industry, government and marketing."