Department of Statistics Academic Program Review Spring 2015
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Department of Statistics Academic Program Review Spring 2015 Department of Statistics • Texas A&M University • 3143 TAMU • College Station, TX 77843-3143 (979) 845-3141 • www.stat.tamu.edu Table of Contents I. Introduction Brief History of the Department……………………………………………………. 4 Mission and Goals………………………………………………………………….. 8 Administrative Structure of the Department………………………………………... 11 Resources…………………………………………………………………………... 13 Analysis……………………………………………………………………………. 14 Undergraduate Program……………………………………………………………. 15 Graduate Program………………………………………………………………….. 16 Professional Education……………………………………………………………... 19 Challenges and Opportunities……………………………………………………… 20 Assessment………………………………………………………………………… 22 II. Student Report Graduate Program in Statistics……………………………………………………… 28 Master of Science Program…………………………………………………………. 29 Doctor of Philosophy Program……………………………………………………... 32 Internship Program…………………………………………………………………. 35 Undergraduate Course Offerings…………………………………………………… 36 Graduate Course Offerings………………………………………………………… 37 Scheduling Coursework…………………………………………………………….. 42 Graduate Program Admissions Criteria……………………………………………... 43 GRE Scores for First Time Students………………………………………………... 44 Graduate Students Applied, Admitted, and Enrolled ………………………………. 45 Students by GPR Range……………………………………………………………. 48 Institutional Support for Full Time Students……………………………………….. 50 Honors & Awards Received by Students…………………………………………… 51 Statistics Graduate Student Association…………………………………………….. 54 Student Publications………………………………………………………………... 55 Professional Development Opportunities for Students……………………………... 56 Average Year to Degree, By Degree Program………………………………………. 57 Masters Graduation and Retention Report…………………………………………. 58 Doctoral Graduation and Retention Report………………………………………... 59 Master’s Degrees Awarded…………………………………………………………. 60 Ph.D. Degrees Awarded……………………………………………………………. 65 Ph.D. Graduate Employers………………………………………………………… 69 III. Faculty Information Department of Statistics Faculty……………………………………………………. 73 Average FTE for Faculty Rank……………………………………………………... 76 Faculty Rank by Ethnicity………………………………………………………….. 77 Headcount by Faculty Rank………………………………………………………... 78 Demographics by Faculty Rank…………………………………………………….. 79 Honors and Awards Received by Faculty…………………………………………... 80 Committee Assignments……………………………………………………………. 81 Faculty Editorial Service……………………………………………………………. 82 1 Primary Investigator Awards……………………………………………………….. 85 Co-Principal and Collaborating Investigator Awards……………………………….. 88 Faculty Collaborations within Texas A&M…………………………………………. 90 SCH per FTE and Student/Faculty Ratio………………………………………….. 93 Faculty Summary…………………………………………………………………… 94 Weighted Average Faculty Salary Comparisons……………………………………... 95 Goldplate Funding………………………………………………………………….. 96 Semester Credit Hours Taught by Faculty Rank…………………………………….. 97 History of Courses Taught………………………………………………………….. 102 IV. Appendix A. MS Statistics and Online Programs…………………………………………. 105 B. MS Analytics Overview……………………………………………………... 111 C. Proposal for an Undergraduate Major in Statistics………………………….. 115 D. Postdoctoral Training Program in Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and the Biological Basis of Nutrition and Cancer…………………………… 122 E. Institute for Applied Mathematics and Computational Science……………... 124 F. Center for Statistical Bioinformatics………………………………………... 128 G. Statistics Gifts and Endowments…………………………………………… 129 H. Colloquium and Seminar Speakers………………………………………….. 130 I. Department of Statistics Alumni Advisory Board…………………………… 142 J. Faculty Postdoctoral Researchers…………………………………………… 200 K. Department Bylaws………………………………………………………… 202 L. Faculty Biographical Sketches………………………………………………. 217 2 I. INTRODUCTION 3 Brief History of the Department The Department of Statistics was formed in 1962 as the Graduate Institute of Statistics with the mandate of providing statistical research, consulting, and instruction for Texas A&M University. The Department was authorized from its inception to grant MS and PhD degrees. Prior to 1962, a number of different departments provided the few statistics courses taught at the undergraduate and graduate level. H.O. Hartley was the Institute's first Director and by the fall of 1964 the Department consisted of a faculty of five with twelve graduate students. The Department resided in several locations prior to its moving to the Olin E. Teague Building in 1966. The construction of this building was greatly assisted by an NSF Center for Excellence grant obtained by Professor Hartley and others. The university’s computing center also resided in the Teague Building. The rapid expansion of the university during the 1970s and subsequent demands for space by the computing center resulted in the Institute moving to its current location on the fourth floor of the John R. Blocker Building in 1981. In the fall of 2004, the Department acquired additional office space on the fifth floor of the Blocker Building. The Graduate Institute of Statistics was included in 1966 as a member of the newly formed College of Science and in 1984 acquired its current name, the Department of Statistics. In 1977, Dr. Hartley retired and was succeeded by Dr. William B. Smith. By the early 1980s the Department had grown to 18 faculty members with 40-50 graduate students. The next two department heads were Dr. Raymond J. Carroll, appointed in 1986, and Dr. H. Joseph Newton in 1990. The faculty by this time had grown to 25 members with 60-65 graduate students. Along with this increase in the size of the faculty and graduate student population was a concurrent increase in research productivity and funded research. Another indicator of the university's high regard for the Department was the designation of Drs. Manny Parzen and Raymond J. Carroll as Distinguished Professors. At the time, there were only 46 faculty members currently holding the title of Distinguished Professor at Texas A&M University. In 1998, Dr. James Calvin was appointed to head the Department, which, at that time, consisted of 26 faculty members with 60-65 graduate students. Dr. Calvin served as Department Head for 6 years. With the appointment of Dr. Simon Sheather in March 2005 as Department Head, the department embarked on two major initiatives in the area of online teaching. In 2006, the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents approved the introduction of the Master of Science degree in Statistics for distance delivery. The first cohort of 20 students started the program in Fall 2007. By the Spring 2014 semester there were over 400 students enrolled in on-line statistics graduate courses, with 292 seeking an M.S. degree. Over 100 4 students have completed the program and received their M.S. degree in Statistics. The distance master’s is a key source of revenue for the Department, and arguably the most successful statistics distance-learning program in the nation. Further details regarding the distance learning masters program is provided in Appendix A. In 2012, a second distance-learning program was initiated when an agreement was reached with the Mays Business School to offer a joint MS Analytics program; this program began in Fall 2013. The Analytics program has experienced great initial success, and in the Fall of 2014 28 students enrolled in the program. The first cohort of students is expected to graduate in May 2015. Further details regarding the MS Analytics program is provided in Appendix B. In addition to the distance M.S. programs in Statistics and Analytics, a “fast track” PhD program was introduced in 2008, and a Certificate of Applied Statistics was approved. In 2009, a joint TAMU/SAS certificate was introduced and the number of supported on-campus graduate students was expanded with the introduction of Technology Teaching Assistants. The Department also added two more Distinguished Professors, Drs. Clifford Spiegelman and Bani Mallick. A history of the Department was published on its 50th anniversary in 2012,1 and the anniversary was celebrated the following year in March. A short video prepared for this gathering is available on line at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9v2dZ5C5Ei. In March of 2014, Dr. Valen Johnson was appointed as Department Head. Dr. Johnson was recruited to the Department in 2012 as one of three faculty hires supported by the Applied Mathematical, Statistical and Computational Sciences (AMSCS) white paper, which had been selected as a research landmark area in 2009. From its inception, the Department has been substantially involved in collaborative research. Dr. Hartley and the faculty had research grants and contracts from ONR, NASA, Army Research Office, and National Center for Toxicological Research. For over twenty years, the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station provided funding for statistical consulting. The Department was actively involved in the development of the Center for Environmental and Rural Health, an NIEHS funded research center. Also, several faculty members greatly assisted in obtaining the competitive renewal of Texas A&M University's EPA funded Superfund Basic Research Program. In 2001, Professor Carroll received a grant from NCI to establish a two-year training program in Bioinformatics. The success of this program has resulted in the grant being renewed through 2016. A number of faculty have also been appointed as adjunct faculty at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MDACC), 1 S. Sheather and J. South, Texas A&M Department of Statistics, Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the