my ASA Story: Kim Love, Collaborative Statistician

摘要

I joined the American Statistical Association in graduate school at the recommendation of my program and, in retrospect, I am so glad they encouraged us to join! After graduate school and my postdoc work, I took on a role as associate director of a university stat lab and found myself looking for new and different kinds of support than I had ever needed in the past. Thankfully, the ASA Section on Statistical Consulting and its network of members was already there for me. Through the community forum, business meetings at JSM, and eventually serving on the section's executive committee, I have had many opportunities to both learn from others and contribute to the field of statistical collaboration. One of the experiences that was most personally rewarding for me, however, came from a more general ASA experience. As a graduate student, I first became interested in the wider concepts related to statistical consulting when we used Dr. Janice Derr's textbook, Statistical Consulting: A Guide to Effective Communication, to learn about the process of collaboration. The work was pioneering at the time it was published, teaching communication and relational skills alongside technical skills and providing videos demonstrating both positive and negative client interactions. I used these while teaching a collaboration course to my own graduate students almost 10 years later, and I was thrilled to see these videos also captured their attention and pushed them to consider client interactions in greater detail and with the importance they deserve.