Curricular Collaboration in Statistics

The Five College statisticians foster collaborations between statisticians and users of statistics by matching statistics students with researchers from other fields. Collaborations often take place in the context of a class. Students in the class are divided into teams. Each team works on one project during the semester in collaboration with one or more researchers from another discipline.

How it works for researchers

Researchers wishing to collaborate with a team of statistics students should email a brief description of the proposed project. A few paragraphs usually suffice. One of our statisticians will then schedule an appointment to learn more about the project, its scope and the expertise required, and whether it is suitable for a curricular collaboration. We will attempt to match the project with our students and faculty, according to mutual interest and the expertise required. If there's a good match we will facilitate an initial meeting of all parties who can then decide whether to collaborate.

We encourage researchers to talk to us early in their research projects as we may be able to help with the design of studies. Some projects may need collaboration twice: once early for study design and once later for data analysis.

How it works for students

Students wishing to gain experience applying their statistical knowledge to current research under faculty supervision may Our courses are designed so that students join a research team right from the start. Each team has statistics students, a statistics professor, and an external researcher. Each team will collaborate for the duration of the semester, report periodically to the whole class, and write a final report on the project.

There are statistical collaboration courses for both graduate and undergraduate students. Email to learn what is planned for a particular semester.