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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)


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)


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


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)