TITLE:   Statistics in Service to the Nation

SPEAKER: Professor Stephen Fienberg

ABSTRACT:

All too often academic statisticians think of their role as the production of new theory and methods.  But at least as important is the role we can fulfill in support national  activities and projects requiring statistical insights and rigor. Many (but far from all) of these are based at the National Research Council and its committees and panels.  I will illustrate the value and creativity of statistical thinking in a diverse set of projects that span the past half century---from the "National Halothane Study" through "The Polygraph and Lie Detection."  A crucial feature of several of these activities has been the impetus for development of new research.  I will also emphasize the role I believe statisticians  should be playing in such activities in the future.