The Statistical Consulting Center at Wright State University

Harry Khamis

Statistical Consulting Center

Wright State University

Dayton, OH.

ABSTRACT

The Statistical Consulting Center (SCC) at Wright State University started in 1982 as a research support service for University researchers and an opportunity for our graduate statistics students to engage in the art and science of statistical consulting. For our students, it has served as a very effective transition from book reading and passive classroom learning to active practice and application of statistical science to real research data. In this talk, I will discuss: the history of the SCC, its current organization, the statistical consulting course (required of all graduate statistics students), how it has converted from being completely funded by the University to a self-supporting operation, and some of the initiatives that have been especially successful.

BIO

Harry Khamis received his Ph.D. in statistics at Virginia Tech in 1980. Since then he has been at Wright State University in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics, except for a two-year visiting professorship at Uppsala University in Sweden. He became Director of the Statistical Consulting Center in 1993. He has a joint appointment in the Boonshoft School of Medicine, where he has worked on the famous Fels Longitudinal Study, the largest and longest running (since 1929) study of human growth and body composition in the world.