September 26, 2008
SAS Workshops by ASA and UM Stat Department
Up and running with SAS
A hands-on workshop to get you working with SAS, the world's leading statistical software.
Dates:
Thursday, October 2 (6-9 PM)
Thursday, October 9 (6-9 PM tentatively)
Place: 1230 USB
Undergraduate Science Building
Cost: Free!
Sign up by emailing Barry DeCicco barrydmailbox-asa@yahoo.com
Note: Seating is limited. UM Statistics Students will be given priority if you put ?UM Stat Student? in the regarding line. (If you emailed Barry to sign up before Sept 26, please send an email to state you are a UM Stat Student). We hope to repeat the session on Oct 9.
Posted by kshedden at 09:57 AM | Comments (0)
September 22, 2008
Google Earth workshop
On October 22-23 there will be a workshop on using Google Earth in scientific research. Much of this will be about geostatistics, massive data sets, and visualization. These are major new frontiers for the field of statistics. The workshop looks excellent.
http://googleearthconference.engin.umich.edu
By the way, Google has been hiring a lot of statisticians recently.
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2008
Career Day
The Department of Statistics annual Career Day will be held on Friday, October 10, 2008 from 11:30 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. Again this year, we will have presentations from three of our Stats alumni (Bachelors, Masters & Ph.D.). They will also be available for individual meetings after lunch. A sign up sheet will be available during the lunch if you are interested in meeting them one on one. Also, please note that Career Services will have a table at the luncheon to provide you with information about their services and possible job opportunities. Progressive Insurance will also host a table at the luncheon. They are very interested in Michigan Statistics students and have said that they are recruiting both undergraduate (majors and minors) and graduate students. So, you may want to have a copy of your resume on hand if you might be interested in going to work for Progressive. See the attached flyer for specific information.
The schedule is as follows:
11:30-1:00: Guest Alumni Presentations - 340 West Hall
Greg Dyson (Ph.D., 2004) Research Investigator, Human Genetics, Medical School
Kathleen Dooley (Applied Masters, 2006) SVP, Quantitative Operations Manager: Modeling, Analysis and Testing, Bank of America
Peter Brown (Bachelor of Science, 2005) Research Analyst, Dynamic Logic
1:00-2:30: Luncheon Reception - 470 West Hall
2:30-4:00: Individual Meetings with Alumni Presenters - 438 West Hall
Posted by kshedden at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)
Positions at ACNielsen
Forwarded message:
If anyone is interested in these positions, they can apply through the Career Center's website. Also, make sure to check us out on Tuesday, September 26th from 2-6 at the LS&A career fair!
ACNielsen Analytic Consulting is a division of The Nielsen Company that helps clients address such key business issues as pricing, promotion, marketing mix, assortment and product rationalization, category placement, category structure and in-store, in-market auditing and testing. The individuals who make this happen are highly talented, highly motivated, and use their unique skills sets in a fast-paced dynamic environment to provide real-time results for their clients. We have a team-oriented, casual environment which fosters cooperation and knowledge sharing. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies with businesses in North America, Europe, Asia and Latin America. To learn more please visit www.nielsen.com. We are seeking talented, high-energy candidates for Project Analyst opportunities in our Chicago and Schaumburg, IL offices. The Analyst is responsible for applying analytic models and tools to scanner-based store and household panel data. Analysts will work closely with managers on all aspects of project work including preparation of data (internal and syndicated sources), model development (including multivariate, time-series regression using SPSS), interpretation of model results, and building client presentations.
ACNielsen is a division of The Nielsen Company that provides marketing information, primarily to manufacturers and retailers of Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). Offering services in more than 100 countries, ACNielsen provides measurement and analysis of marketplace dynamics and consumer attitudes and behavior. Clients rely on ACNielsen's retail and consumer market research, proprietary products, analytical tools and professional service to understand competitive performance, to uncover new opportunities and to raise the profitability of their marketing and sales campaigns. The ACNielsen team is comprised of creative, bright and self-motivated individuals whose collective energy and contributions are matched only by the strength and consistency of our leadership. To help associates maximize their career potential, we've cultivated a flexible culture that embraces their innovativeness, diversity and career development. As an Associate Analyst, you will analyze market research and other data to provide value-added insights to a Nielsen client, supporting the client in executing against their strategic marketing plans. Working with your manager and client service team, you will ensure client servicing requirements are meeting or exceeding the client's expectations while building a strong client relationship.
BASES is a division of The Nielsen Company that specializes in consulting and market research for marketers of new products. Major manufacturers rely on us to evaluate their new product ideas, accurately predict sales and increase the brand?s potential by helping marketers make decisions at critical stages of the new product development process. We conduct market research studies on over 10,000 new product ideas per year. We offer a highly stimulating, challenging, yet casual work atmosphere. The BASES analyst track is the leadership career path from which our senior executives rise. The analyst focuses on four main areas: developing sales forecasts, analyzing market research results, writing presentations, and consulting with clients. BASES' extensive training program gives analysts the background to analyze consumer, in-market, and marketing plan data in order to develop sales estimates and actionable recommendations. Finally, analysts also work directly with clients helping to ensure our analyses successfully address our client's business needs. Exact starting position will be based on skills and previous relevant experience.
Posted by kshedden at 05:37 PM | Comments (0)
UM Biostatistics prospective student day
All--
This event on October 18th will be an informative event for anyone with an interest in biostatistics:
http://www.sph.umich.edu/students/prospective/information_day.html
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
September 15, 2008
Resume workshop
The Department of Statistics will present a Resume Writing Workshop on October 7th and 3-4pm or October 8th from 12-1pm in 438 West Hall. You can choose the session that best fits your schedule. Professor Mimi Ritter will conduct the session. Please bring a draft of your resume with you.
Posted by kshedden at 05:22 PM | Comments (0)
September 13, 2008
Bank of America presentation (updated)
Hi everyone,
Dr. Agus Sudjianto's presentation (see earlier post) will take place September 16 at 5pm in 1360 East Hall.
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)
September 11, 2008
Swiss Re information session
Hi everyone,
Consider attending this if you are interested in finance or insurance. Note that Swiss Re is very broad in the services and career opportunities that it provides. I'm sure that they have a lot of people doing statistical work.
Kerby
Forwarded message:
Swiss Re Information Session
Date: Monday, September 15, 2008
Time: 6:00pm-7:30pm
Location: Michigan Union, Anderson Room - B
Please join Weldon W. Wilson, Member of the Executive Board, Head of Global Admin Re & Run-off, Client Markets Business Functions as he speaks about Swiss Re, the world's largest reinsurance company and strategy in a rapidly evolving financial environment.
W. Weldon Wilson was appointed to the Executive Board in September 2003.
A US citizen born in 1961, he graduated from the Vanderbilt University School of Law in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1986 with a doctorate in jurisprudence. He also holds a BA in political science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Alabama.
Weldon Wilson worked for two Texan law firms as an associate attorney and was with Life Re from 1991 to 1998. He joined Swiss Re in 1998 as general counsel, secretary and director of Swiss Re Life & Health America Inc. and its subsidiaries. Before his appointment to the Executive Board, he held the position of executive vice president and head of the business engineering services unit, where he was responsible for overseeing the firm's Admin Re programme as well as other reinsurance solutions for life and health clients in North America.
Posted by kshedden at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)
September 10, 2008
Opportunities with the D. E. Shaw group
FYI.... Kerby
Forwarded message:
We would like to invite all interested University of Michigan students to apply for permanent positions and summer internships with our firm. Headquartered in New York City, the D. E. Shaw group is a global investment and technology development firm with offices in North America, Europe, and Asia. Activities range from the deployment of investment strategies based on either mathematical models or human expertise to the acquisition of existing companies and the financing or development of new ones.
In addition to a variety of other roles we seek to fill, we are looking to train a number of motivated students to trade in one of a variety of systematic and fundamental investment strategies. Strong quantitative and analytical abilities, extraordinary communication, negotiation, and interpersonal skills, and an exceptional sensitivity to detail are essential. Direct prior experience is not required, but some demonstrated interest in and exposure to financial markets is a decided advantage.
We will also have a table at the Job Fair 2008 on September 24 in Michigan Union. Even if you've never previously considered a career in finance, we hope you'll stop by our booth.
To apply for the Proprietary Junior Trader position described above, or to learn more about our other opportunities, please log on to Career Center Connector (http://www.careercenter.umich.edu/students/index.html) or My iMpact. For all positions, you may also apply anytime by sending a resume and cover letter to jobs@deshaw.com.
Our work environment is challenging but surprisingly flexible-from the clothes you wear to the time you get to the office, it's pretty much up to you. And we compensate our extraordinary people extraordinarily well.
Sincerely,
Strategic Growth
The D. E. Shaw group
www.deshaw.com
Posted by kshedden at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
Bank of America presentation
Hi everyone,
Dr. Agus Sudjianto is a statistician at Bank of America who is involved with applications of statistical methods to challenging problems within BofA.
Dr. Sudjianto will be visiting our department on September 16 at 5pm to give a presentation to undergraduate and graduate students about projects involving statistics in financial companies.
They are also recruiting for various positions, including the Quantitative Management Associate Program which is intended to train quantitatively oriented graduates at the bachelor's and master's levels for management positions.
I highly recommend this for anyone interested in working in the finance industry.
We haven't fixed the location yet, I'll send out another e-mail when we have a room.
UPDATE -- Ignore my earlier post about the room number. We are still looking for a room.
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
September 08, 2008
USCOTS competition for statistics students
Hi everyone,
Last spring we tried to get something going for the USCOTS competition (see below), which is a competition for teams of statistics undergraduate students based on projects involving statistical methods, theory, or data analysis.
The projects can be submitted until January 26, 2009, so there's still plenty of time to get something together this term.
Regardless of whether you were one of the people who started with this in the spring, you are welcome to help us start one or more teams this fall.
Brenda and I will be available to give advice on suitable projects and strategy. If each team member can find around 10 hours this semester to put into this, I think that's enough of a commitment to produce a serious project.
I hope to hear from some of you about this,
Kerby
Forwarded message:
Undergraduate Statistics Project Competition
The 2nd biennial international undergraduate statistics project competition begins to accept the projects until January 26, 2009. If you have undergraduate students conducting class projects or any independent study projects that involve analyzing real data, please encourage them to submit their projects. The guidelines can be found in the CAUSE web site at
http://www.causeweb.org/usproc/
The presentations of the top three winning projects for the 2007 competition can be found at
http://www.cst.cmich.edu/users/lee1c/usproc
Top eight projects will be selected and the top four will receive monetary rewards and a free trip to make presentation at the United State Conference on Teaching Statistics (2009 USCOTS). The instructor sponsor will also receive free registration to attend the 2009 USCOTS.
If you have any question, please contact Carl Lee at carl.lee@cmich.edu, the competition organizing committee chair.
Posted by kshedden at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)
CSP tutor positions
See below if you are interested in tutoring for the CSP.
From: Williams, Chauncey
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2008 3:42 PM
Subject: Hello
Hello,
I am recruiting again students to become tutors in the CSP program. I wanted to know if you could pass along this information to undergraduates interested in Statistics. We are looking for tutors for Stats 100, 350 or math. I can be reached at G155 Angell Hall or 764-9128. Thanks again.
Sincerely,
Chauncey Williams, M.A.
Academic Advisor
Tutor Coordinator
Posted by kshedden at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)
Quantitative finance panel discussion
If you are interested in quantitative finance you might want to attend this:
http://www.iafe.org/09192008.html
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 02:47 PM | Comments (0)
UM solar car team looking for statisticians
The solar car team needs statisticians, contact Alex if you are interested.
Forwarded message:
Dear Statistics Students,
I would like to take a few minutes to introduce you to one of the largest, most successful student groups on campus: the University of Michigan Solar Car Team. Every two years our team designs, finances, builds and races a solar-powered vehicle across North American and Australia. This last July our team won the North American Solar Challenge - our fifth National Championship. For our latest project, Infinium, we hope to take Michigan Solar Car to the next level, winning our team's first World Championship in an 1800-mile race across Australia. With a team of the University's brightest and most devoted students, Project Infinium will prove Michigan's place as the Leaders and Best.
The racing portion of the project is rather competitive and as a result we have team members dedicated to developing a comprehensive race strategy from day one. The current Michigan strategy is heavily depended on an understanding of the vehicle's physics and an ability to predict the vehicle's performance. Currently, our team uses a significant amount of testing to characterize the vehicle's performance. We are currently looking for statistics students in particular to help with experimental design and data analysis.
I encourage you to come to one of our two mass meetings to learn more about the team and how you can immediately become involved with the project. Both mass meetings will cover identical content, with one on Central Campus and one on North Campus.
Central Campus Mass Meeting
Tuesday, September 9, 8:30 PM
E0305 Business School
North Campus Mass Meeting
Thursday, September 11, 7:00 PM
1670 CSE Building
If you are unable to attend one of these meetings, please feel free to e-mail me to learn more about the team and our current opportunities.
Go Fast, Go Smooth, Go Blue.
Alex
--
Alex Dowling
Strategy Director
2009 Solar Car Team
University of Michigan
alexdowl@umich.edu
Office: 734-764-2257
www.umsolar.com
Posted by kshedden at 01:01 AM | Comments (0)
September 05, 2008
Statistics Department Picnic
Hi everyone,
The Statistics Department is holding its annual picnic on Sunday, September 28, beginning at 3PM at Island Park in Ann Arbor. I hope many of you will be able to come.
Island park is near Maiden Lane and Island Drive along the Huron River. Food and beverages will be provided.
To aid in planning, if you think you'll be coming to the picnic, take a minute and follow the link below for a quick RSVP.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=vO_2fBPgYmXb73s7V28bjXBA_3d_3d
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 03:40 PM | Comments (0)
Undergraduate statistics seminar
Welcome back everyone,
This year we're going to start an occasional series of short talks for undergraduates interested in statistics.
The first talk will be given by Brady West. Brady is a graduate of our undergraduate and masters statistics programs from about 5 years ago. He then worked in UM (at CSCAR) as a statistical consultant, co-authored a book on mixed models, and is just beginning the UM PhD program in survey research methodology.
His talk we be about statistical analysis of basketball and football tournament results.
The talk will take place on September 18th in B760 East Hall at 5:45. Please join us in 470 West Hall at 5:30 for cookies and coffee.
The title and abstract are below. I hope to see many of you there.
Kerby
Title: Some New Applications of Statistical Methods to Hot Topics in NCAA Basketball and Football Post-Season Competition
ABSTRACT
This presentation first presents a brief review of potential rating tools and methods for predicting success in the NCAA basketball tournament, including those methods (such as the Ratings Percentage Index, or RPI) that receive a great deal of weight in selecting and seeding teams for the tournament. The presentation then proposes a simple and flexible rating method based on ordinal logistic regression and expectation (the OLRE method; West, 2006) that is designed to predict success for those teams selected to participate in the NCAA tournament. Simulations based on the parametric Bradley-Terry model for paired comparisons are used to demonstrate the ability of the computationally simple OLRE method to predict success in the tournament, using actual NCAA tournament data from 2006-2008. Given that the proposed method can incorporate several different predictors of success in the NCAA tournament when calculating a rating, and is shown to have better predictive power than a model-based approach, it should be considered as an alternative to other rating methods currently used to assign seeds and regions to the teams selected to play in the tournament. The predictive power of the model-based simulation approach is also discussed, given the success of this approach in 2007 and 2008. Current limitations and directions for future work in this area will be discussed.
The presentation then considers a review of previous quantitative literature dedicated to the development of ratings for college and professional football teams, and also considers various methods that have been proposed for predicting the outcomes of future football games. Building on this literature, the presentation then discusses a straightforward application of linear modeling in the development of a predictive model for the outcomes of college football bowl games (West and Lamsal, 2008), and identifies important team-level predictors of actual bowl outcomes in 2007-2008 using real Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) data from the recently completed 2004-2006 college football seasons. Given that Bowl Championship Series (BCS) ratings are still being used to determine the teams most eligible to play for a national championship and a playoff system for determining a national champion is not yet a reality, the predictive model is then applied in a novel method for the calculation of ratings for selected teams, based on a round-robin playoff scenario. The presentation also considers additional possible applications of the proposed methods, and concludes with current limitations and directions for future work in this area.
Posted by kshedden at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)
SAMSI's Fall Undergraduate Workshop & fall events
Welcome back everyone,
We have several events planned for the fall, so expect some announcements shortly from me and from Brenda.
Below is an announcement for an undergraduate research workshop at SAMSI (the Statistical and Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in North Carolina).
For anyone considering going to graduate school, this would be a great chance to learn about an active research area. Don't worry if you haven't heard of the topic area before. All expenses are covered by SAMSI.
Note the September 25th deadline.
Kerby
---------- Forwarded message ----------
As part of its Education and Outreach Program for 2008-2009, the Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI) will offer a two-day undergraduate workshop on topics of current interest in statistics and applied mathematics. In addition to an overview of current and planned SAMSI Research Programs, the program topic
*Sequential Monte Carlo Methods
will be covered in some depth.
This workshop will be held on October 31 - November 1, 2008 at SAMSI. The program will begin at 9:30 AM on Friday, October 31st, and will be completed by 12 noon on Saturday, November 1st. Participants are urged to arrive on Thursday evening and will be able to begin their return home by 12 noon on Saturday. Applications received by Friday, September 25th, will receive full consideration.
Please call this program to the attention of interested undergraduates and encourage them to apply. More program information and registration details can be found at
http://www.samsi.info/workshops/2008ug-workshop200810.shtml
Please send any questions to
ugworkshop200810@samsi.info
The SAMSI Directorate
(James Berger, Pierre Gremaud, Nell Sedransk Michael Minion)
Posted by kshedden at 02:37 PM | Comments (0)
First entry
We'll try using this blog to archive information and announcements from the UM undergraduate statistics program.
Let's see how it goes.
Kerby
Posted by kshedden at 02:34 PM | Comments (0)