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Committee on Applied Statistics Webinar

Dear Friends of CAS,

Please join us on July 30, 2021 at 1:00PM (EST) for Ron Wasserstein's interactive webinar "Cultivating Productive Relationships in a Virtual Environment." Statisticians and data scientists recognize that one of the keys to successful outcomes in their work is the importance of the relationships they have with others. While there is a wide body of work available on building and maintaining professional relationships, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced new challenges. This webinar will discuss harnessing the benefits of virtual work and learning environments to cultivate productive relationships.

Register in advance for this meeting:https://amstat.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYpduCrrTopG9KYOdUXDHaOnJ29SVA0pRpF

Bio: Ronald L. (Ron) Wasserstein is the executive director of the American Statistical Association (ASA). Wasserstein assumed the ASA’s top staff leadership post in August 2007.

In this role, Wasserstein provides executive leadership and management for the association and is responsible for ensuring that the ASA fulfills its mission to promote the practice and profession of statistics. He also is responsible for a staff of 36 at the ASA’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va. As executive director, Wasserstein also is an official ASA spokesperson.

Prior to joining the ASA, Wasserstein was a mathematics and statistics department faculty member and administrator at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., from 1984–2007. During his last seven years at the school, he served as the university’s vice president for academic affairs.

Wasserstein is a longtime member of the ASA, having joined the association in 1983, and has been active as a volunteer in the ASA for more than 20 years. He twice served as president of the Kansas-Western Missouri Chapter of the ASA. Wasserstein served as chair of two ASA sections—the ASA Section on Statistical Education and the ASA Section on Statistical Consulting. He also chaired the Council of Chapters Governing Board in 2006 and was a member of the ASA Board of Directors from 2001–2003.

Wasserstein is a Fellow of the ASA and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was presented the John Ritchie Alumni Award and Muriel Clarke Student Life Award from Washburn University, the Manning Distinguished Service Award from the North American Association of Summer Schools, and the George Mach Distinguished Service Award from Kappa Mu Epsilon National Mathematics Honor Society.

Ron and his wife, Sherry, live in northern Virginia and enjoy jogging, movies, binge-watching TV series, live theater, books, and doting on their children and grandchildren.

Sincerely,

Your Friends at the Committee on Applied Statisticians

News Archive

  • Become a Better Statistician by Actively Collaborating: The ASA Committee on Applied Statisticians

    By: John Lin John Lin , 6 years ago
    Applied statisticians and data scientists must be—almost by definition—collaborative because they rarely author the studies they design, or generate the data they will analyze. However, these essential collaboration skills are seldom taught as part of statistics graduate programs. With strong skills in effectively engaging with others, we can proactively seek collaborators, work to develop the research questions, design the analyses, and contribute fully to all parts of a project and not just the statistical methods and analysis alone. As with nearly all research and scientific areas, it is important to bridge interactions by skillful navigation of effective and influential teamwork, clear communication, ability to negotiate, diversity of cultures, and shared terminology.  Clearly, to meaningfully collaborate requires multi-facetted skills and a lot of practice.

    The Committee on Applied Statisticians (CAS) is developing a Collaboration Training Program on behalf of ASA to help ASA members recognize and acquire the skills to actively collaborate and become a successful partner on any multi-disciplinary team.

    CAS recently kicked-off program activities with a collaboration workshop of nearly 50 participants from ASA sections’ leadership at the 2017 JSM in Baltimore. The session was the first JSM gathering of all section chairs and chair-elects. We hope to continue this session in future years. Many ASA committees working on programs that enhance members’ benefits and increase collaboration among sections also joined the session. Section leaders shared ongoing partnership experiences, and new opportunities were explored during the informal session. This include, starting an online ASA leadership community among the section and committee leadership, sharing insights into career paths for statisticians, mentoring activities, joint webinars, etc. CAS hopes to facilitate this online community, foster these partnerships, and to share further success stories over the coming year and at the 2018 JSM in Vancouver.

    As part of the Collaboration journey within ASA, leaders from various ASA committees, viz, The Statistical Partnerships Among Academe, Industry & Government Committee (SPAIG), Committee for Career Development, Adhoc Leadership Development., Council of Sections Governing Board (CoSGB), ASA Membership Council) came together with CAS to form the Collaboration Network.  The network generated many new ideas including the content for the above workshop at JSM. This group also shared their various resources and embarked on other collaboration initiatives both inside and outside the ASA.

    CAS is also developing a year-long series of webinars for all statisticians. These free, one-hour monthly webinars will enhance the important collaboration skills that all statisticians need succeed. The first will be on “Structuring Effective Meetings”, on Sept 15th at 1pm. You can register online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/structuring-effective-meetings-tickets-36514927130. These webinars will be recorded and made available online at a later date.