Topic-Contributed Panel
Strategic Career Planning for the Academic Statistical Scientist: Another Kind of ‘Survival Analysis’
August 1, 10:30 a.m., CC-Room 31A
Panelists: Shari Messinger, Motomi Mori, Ralph O’Brien, and James Grady
Many MS and PhD biostatisticians are recruited by academic institutions to be involved primarily in consulting and collaborating. They become instrumental in enhancing the ability of various research teams to write successful grant proposals and produce excellent publications that will have a strong effect in science and/or on public policy. Yet, while such statistical scientists are greatly valued by their collaborators and institutions, all of them—even the very best—face the same question: What about my career development? The effective leader of a biostatistics unit in academia faces the same question, but from a different perspective: Given the limited resources I have today, how do I best promote such career development so that my whole unit thrives? This panel and discussion will focus on how collaborating biostatisticians can survive and thrive in academia today. The panel members cover two perspectives, that of the individual biostatistician and that of the leader of the biostatistics unit. Issues to be addressed include expectations of both the institution and the individual, documentation of collaborative success, and criteria for promotion and tenure.