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Abstract:
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At a recent conference at the University of Michigan, Michael Jordan (UC Berkeley) admonished his audience to “embrace being Engineers,” and “…think about what ‘statistical engineering’ could look like, as a counterpart to statistical science...” The purpose of this roundtable lunch is to discuss this proposal from Jordan. Further, a new professional society, the International Statistical Engineering Association (ISEA - https://isea-change.org/) has recently been launched to consider this same question. As background, science essentially focuses on study and advancement of our fundamental understanding of the natural world, while engineering considers how the laws of science and mathematics might be utilized to enhance the human condition. For example, science develops the fundamental physics, while engineering utilizes physics to design a bridge. In statistics, statistical science advances the theory and application of individual methods, while statistical engineering considers how existing methods might be integrated to address large, complex, unstructured problems. For such problems, there is no “textbook” solution; rather a unique and creative solution must be “engineered”.
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