Welcome to the website of the ASA section on Statistical Consulting!

Statistical consulting is the most challenging and most rewarding part of statistics. A consultant uses the art and science of statistics to solve a practical problem. Problems come from many different fields, e.g. marketing, product design, manufacturing, medicine, agriculture, or genetics, but many of us specialize in just a few application areas. Some consultants work at universities or medical centers, some work in industry, and many run their own business. Good consulting requires a strong technical background in statistics, good people skills, and for many, a good business sense. Other sections of the ASA help with the technical aspects of statistics. The statistical consulting section is here to help with everything else.

The services we provide (or will provide soon) include:

A series of web-cast seminars on consulting co-sponsored by the section and the ASA committee on applied statistics. Watch the ASA web page and your e-mail inbox for announcements of upcoming seminars.

A consulting referral web page. Section members will be able to post their availability and consulting expertise on a web-accessible searchable data base. This should be open for business sometime this fall.

The new edition of the Statistical Consulting Newsletter, edited by Karen Copeland and Chris Holloman, is here. Previous editions can be found in the Newsletter subsection of this web-site. Every issue has a variety of interesting articles. This issue includes items from JSM 2007 such as the paper on "Undergraduate Consulting as an Introductory Course."

Thank you to Karen Copeland for her excellent work as Newsletter Editor. She made some significant improvements during her tenure. Chris Holloman will be taking over the editor position and we know he'll do well. He is always interested in potential newsletter articles. Send him your comments and ideas.

Your comments, feedback and articles are appreciated.

Stuart Gansky, 2007 Chair, ASA Statistical Consulting Section