Many graduates of the Applied Statistics for Social Science Research program have gone on to pursue successful careers in the field, or are currently studying as doctoral students. All have a passion for using data to answer interesting questions.
Here is a selection of some of our alumni placements:
- Data Analyst, MDRC
- Data Scientist, Bloomberg
- Research Scientist, Amazon
- Data Analyst, NYU Langone Health
- Associate Research Scientist, NYU Global Public Health
- PhD student, Harvard
- PhD student, UC Berkeley
- Research Associate, Guttmacher Institute
- Data Scientist, Teachers Pay Teachers
- PhD student, Stanford
- Senior Data Scientist, Microsoft
- Data Analyst, Center for Policing Equity
- Technical Research Analyst, The Research Alliance for NYC Schools
Read ahead to learn more about several of our recent alumni:
Bohan Jia, ‘24
General Applied Statistics Concentration
What is your program, university, and what is the main focus of your research?
I am a Ph.D. student at the University of California, San Diego, majoring in Biostatistics. My current research primarily focuses on Bayesian semi-parametric and non-parametric modeling.
What inspired you to pursue your degree in Applied Statistics for Social Science Research?
My undergraduate major in Statistics gave me a solid mathematical and theoretical foundation, but I lacked hands-on experience applying theories to real-world datasets. I wanted to strengthen my ability to use statistical methods to better understand society and to improve my statistical computing skills by dealing with practical problems. The high-quality curriculum, project-based assignments and finals, and research opportunities offered by the A3SR program provided exactly what I needed in these areas.
How did the program prepare you for your professional life?
The course APSTA-GE 2352 Practicum in Applied Statistics: Statistical Computing and APSTA-GE 2047 Messy Data and Machine Learning prepared me with strong statistical computing skills and good habits—such as designing simulation studies with clear logic, cleaning real-world data efficiently, and learning many practical coding tricks. APSTA-GE 2012 Causal Inference was entirely new to me. It gave me a fresh statistical perspective on modeling relationships between outcome variables and covariates, which has been super helpful for my subsequent research projects. It also significantly enhanced my simulation strategies.
What was something you especially value from your time in A3SR? Was there a course or professor or particular challenge that sticks with you?
I have been working with Professor Marc Scott for almost two years, and this collaboration was one of the most valuable aspects of my time in A3SR. Since I have a strong interest in Bayesian statistics—also a focus of Professor Marc Scott’s research—I learned a lot from him, especially about modeling life-history data under the Bayesian framework. Beyond the statistical knowledge itself, I gained insights into prior-setting strategies, paper-writing skills, addressing convergence and estimation issues, and the powerful interplay between coding and mathematics. I am deeply grateful for the research project we have been working on together. It taught me how to conduct a high-quality research study and helped me anticipate and avoid potential challenges in my own future research. I believe these lessons will continue to benefit me significantly.
Marlee Sherrod, ‘24
General Applied Statistics Concentration
What is your current position, employer, and what are some of the main responsibilities you have at your job?
Currently, I am a Research Specialist II in City University of New York (CUNY)’s Office of Applied Research, Evaluation & Data Analytics (OAREDA). Specifically, I am part of the evaluation team that manages data and research for the pre-matriculation programs that CUNY offers. I make dashboards using Tableau for the programs to track and monitor their students and their outcomes. I enjoy meeting with these program partners to help them interpret their data and go over data hygiene strategies and practices.
What inspired you to pursue your degree in Applied Statistics for Social Science Research?
I come from a qualitative social science background. I loved my undergraduate degree, but I kept finding that for the social justice issues I cared about, there was a lack of quality quantitative information and research that I wanted to utilize and understand. These issues are nuanced: they require and deserve just as much rigorous exploration to unpack them as the physical sciences. So, to achieve this vision for how I wanted to do research in these spaces, I decided to come to A3SR. I believe using data and statistics ethically should always be in the toolkit to address these issues.
How did the program prepare you for your professional life?
I use the R tidyverse package often in my position, so the familiarity and usage that I gained using it in the program is a boon. Also, causal and quasi-experimental practices are frequently used in education research, so my background in statistics lets me understand the findings my department discusses and ask perceptive questions. Lastly, the program prepared me to work with messy data, because data is always messy and you have to have patience to clean it (shoutout again to the tidyverse to help with that).
What was something you especially value from your time in A3SR? Was there a course or professor or particular challenge that sticks with you?
It is tough to pick because every class was valuable in my opinion. I feel particularly lucky to have been able to take Professor Klint Kanopka’s APSTA-GE 2094 Modern Approaches in Measurement class in my last semester (since it had not been offered in years). It was a deep, new way of thinking but exactly what I wanted to learn, which was understanding how to measure abstract constructs related to the social justice issues I want to analyze. I also enjoyed my APSTA-GE 2331 Data Science for Social Impact class because it grounded us in data’s real-world usages and made us discuss the tough questions about its hopes and harms. Additionally, the class also hosted weekly guest speakers who revealed how the data they use in their jobs affects people and the world. The access the class provided to people like them was amazing!
Andy Cooke, ‘22
Computational Methods Concentration
What is your current position, employer, and what are some of the main responsibilities you have at your job?
I work as a Data Scientist on the Seller Risk team at PayPal. My main responsibilities center around using internal and 3rd party data to systematically assess the riskiness of companies and prioritize them for periodic underwriting.
What inspired you to pursue your degree in Applied Statistics for Social Science Research?
I wanted to pursue the A3SR program to strengthen my statistical acumen alongside people from a wide range of backgrounds across the private sector, nonprofits, and academia.
How did the program prepare you for your professional life?
Beyond providing new knowledge of statistical models and methods, all courses in the A3SR program share an emphasis on using real world data and practicing high quality research design. These skills are of the utmost importance if you want to generate clear, convincing findings from often messy enterprise data.
What was something you especially value from your time in A3SR? Was there a course or professor or particular challenge that sticks with you?
In my final semester, I assisted in a research project on extending a causal machine learning model to multi-level data. It was really exciting to get a glimpse of the research process and work on a relatively unexplored problem in the field of causal machine learning.
Angela He, ‘23
Data Science for Social Impact Concentration
What is your current position, employer, and what are some of the main responsibilities you have at your job?
I work as a Data Scientist at FreshDirect’s analytics team. I am involved in developing demand forecasts, business insights and data-driven strategies to create better food experience and drive healthy solutions for our community in the greater New York tri-state area.
What inspired you to pursue your degree in Applied Statistics for Social Science Research?
As someone with a background in social science and marketing, I wanted to advance my analytical skill set and bridge the gap between qualitative findings and quantitative approaches.
How did the program prepare you for your professional life?
I think A3SR prepared me well with the ability to articulate data to different audiences. It can be challenging when you go from an academic environment to a place where you work with people without a background in statistics or don’t understand the technical jargon. Being able to communicate the technicals to different stakeholders really prepared me to transition to professional life.
What was something you especially value from your time in A3SR? Was there a course or professor or particular challenge that sticks with you?
I really value the community here at A3SR! I always felt comfortable going to any professor about anything, whether it was for questions about class or career advice. I also made close friends and we really helped each other through assignments, finals, and many other challenges.