Stanford University proposes a novel approach to increasing the visibility of graduate studies in statistics, and for drawing U.S. nationals who are talented and interested in quantitative sciences into its graduate programs in statistics. This effort builds upon the existing strength of Stanford's Statistics department and its developed links with three cognate "target" fields -- Computational Biology, Mathematical Finance, and Information Science -- resulting in the attraction of U.S. nationals into the mathematical sciences.
In each of the three target fields, the department will expand an existing successful research activity, which is a basis for classical Ph.D. training, in such a way as to attract the attention and participation of undergraduates, Masters' students, and beginning Ph.D. students in cognate fields. Such students are quantitatively able and will be "captured" into the orbit of the mathematical sciences by offering them a lively experience of intellectual discovery, and demonstrating how essential statistical methodology is to exciting scientific discoveries.
Vertical integration of research and education is to be achieved in part by hosting postdoctoral fellows and undergraduates specializing in each of these cognate fields, and by organizing thematic activities that promote the interaction between undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty.
An outreach and mentoring effort will bring each year additional female participants and members of under-represented minority groups for summer research and education activities in the main themes of the project.
Stanford Statistics has a superb reputation, with a top national rating, and an outstanding mix of faculty with extremely high visibility. The fields chosen as targets are central areas of national importance, the Stanford faculty have international reputations as leaders in these fields, and the VIGRE effort will supervise postdocs and students in cutting-edge research in these areas. The effort aims exactly to move students in cognate fields with strong practical skills and quantitative talent to engage more directly in intellectual discovery at the frontiers of human knowledge, under the direction of acknowledged international leaders.
By expanding the Stanford Statistics department's reach into the cognate areas we expand the opportunities of all our students, both VIGRE participants and everyone else in the orbit of the department. By posing formal initiatives in Financial Mathematics, Computational Biology and Information Science, Stanford will bring new energy and focus into its statistics curriculum. As Stanford has a national leadership position in the field of Statistics, many other U.S. universities are expected to closely watch this effort and replicate its most successful initiatives.
