Life as a (Young) Academic Statistician

Dr Eric J. Beh

School of Computing & Mathematics

University of Western Sydney

SSAI Careers Evening, 29th April, 2009

Life as an (Young) Academic Statistician

Teaching• Meet lots of wonderful people, most of whom are keen

to learn

• You can teach students from a wide variety of disciplines at a variety of levels

• You can teach students material that is similar to your area of research

• Help guide a person’s intellectual development

(its much better being on the other side of the desk)

Life as an (Young) Academic Statistician

Research• Lots of opportunities to conduct research in the

development and application of statistical tools.

• Develop your own research profile

• Research what interests YOU (no one tells me what to research, who to research with, how much research I should do)

• You meet lots of people who are keen to advance knowledge in your area of interest

• Cross-discipline collaboration in non-statistical disciplines (gain other skills and gain new interests)

Life as an (Young) Academic Statistician

Demand

• A number of uni’s around Australia & NZ have advertised for jobs within maths/stats departments

• Plenty of cross-discipline academic positions advertised (biostatistician, geospatial, ecological statistician, public health, analyst/programmer, econometrician, etc)

• Postdoctoral opportunities

• Honours + postgraduate (incl. PhD) scholarships at all universities

Life as an (Young) Academic Statistician

Working Conditions• Flexible working hours (eg work from home)

• If you enjoy research you can see the world– Italy (5 times), USA (3), England (2), New Zealand, Spain

• Salary + 17% employee superannuation contribution

• Good prospects for continual professional development and promotion (universities are keen to see staff develop their teaching, research and administration skills)

• Decent salaries (you can earn a six figure income once you get to top of Senior Lecturer or bottom of Associate Professor)

• Very good job security (people will always want to learn)