Endowed Professorship in Biostatistics

UAB School of Public Health Invites Applicants for Professorship

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Public Health is seeking applicants for the William ‘Student’ Seally Gosset Endowed Professorship in Biostatistics.

Establishment of the endowed position recognizes the contributions the School of Public Health’s Department of Biostatistics has made and will continue to make toward improved statistical methods in leading-edge research projects for public health, medicine, nutrition and many other fields. The professorship is made possible in part by a gift from Pfizer, Inc.

UAB’s Department of Biostatistics is a world leader in the fields of statistical genetics, understanding the causes of the excess stroke mortality, determining the number of patients needed in randomized clinical trials and other analysis work.

Applicants for the endowed professor should be sent to: David B. Allison, Ph.D., UAB Department of Biostatistics, RPHB 327, 1665 University Blvd, Birmingham, AL 35294-0022, or by e-mail to dallison@uab.edu. Candidates will ideally have a doctoral degree, a strong background in statistical genetics and embody the humility and generosity of spirit in equal measure with incisive scholarship, as did the renowned ‘Student’.

The endowed professorship is named for William Sealy Gosset, a 20th Century British statistician who, for proprietary reasons, wrote academic manuscripts under the pen name ‘Student.’ Gossett’s most famous article, “The Probable Error of a Mean,” was published in 1908, and led to what is now called the ‘t distribution,’ a fundamental calculation in small-sample statistics.

About the UAB School of Public Health The School of Public Health is a community of scholars and professionals working and teaching in the different arenas of public health, all with the goal of fostering research and best-practices crucial to the health of our nation. The school offers more than 20 areas of study, and manages dozens of research and community-service centers.