Joint Research & Appointments

The driving force behind the development of modern statistics has been the need to solve practical problems. Historically, statisticians have achieved signal advances in theory and methods as they worked on applications in agriculture, industrial production, medicine, and many other fields. In turn, statistical thinking has greatly stimulated the development of virtually all areas of science. The application of the principles and methods of experimental design, the role of statistical modeling, and the pervasive use of simulation methods are but three instances of statistical developments that have had a deep impact upon science. The widespread influence of interactions between statistics and other disciplines and the very nature of statistics as the science of the "meaning and use of data" establish the statistical sciences as the discipline with the most central and complex cross-disciplinary activity.
Ingram Olkin and Jerome Sacks
September 1988

The Department of Statistics recognizes the foundational connection between statistical theory and applications. We promote the use of statistical methods and models to find real-world solutions through interactions with other groups in the form of joint and courtesy faculty appointments and academic or administrative affiliations. Many of these important relationships are listed here.