When higher levels of college mathematics no longer provided practical applications, I began to realize that I wanted no more of that kind of mathematics. I had performed calculations of standard deviations by hand, which almost made me decide to avoid a college statistics course. However, my advisor thought that I should reconsider that decision because the course was simply an introduction to statistics. My advisor was right!

Statistics presents different challenges than those offered by mathematics. Statistics is more wordy, utilizes different logic, and is directed toward a broad range of questions and applications. Yet to comprehend many of the statistical concepts, I needed lots of theoretical mathematics that did not appear to be relevant earlier. Statistics is a great field for men and women.

I have worked as a statistician for three federal government agencies, each committed to health and environmental research. In these professional settings, I have had great latitude in determining which problems to address and how the work should proceed. I have done research for problems arising from water and waste water evaluation and treatment as well as in many fields of animal testing including pulmonary toxicology and carcinogenesis. Some of the most challenging work has recently arisen from animals exposed to several regimens of ozone at different exposure temperatures where the animals' heart rates and body temperatures were measured every ten minutes for several weeks. I have worked on a study to measure the effect of smoke from coal on humans.