Such a study includes preclinical and clinical experiments and the statistician will be involved in the design and analysis of these experiments. The FDA employs their own statisticians who review the analyses performed by the pharmaceutical company. A statistician employed in the banking industry may be involved with a group of quantitative and business people developing procedures for risk analysis of credit card users. They may be developing data mining techniques for exploring large data bases of financial records. A statistician employed by the automotive industry may be involved in design of experiments for developing more efficient gasoline engines.
Statisticians effectively use computers in doing their data analysis.
One of the main reasons for the demand in statisticians is that the explosive growth in computation has allowed computationally intensive analyses. Most of our courses at the MS level utilize the computer. In fact several classes are devoted exclusively to statistical computing. A person who can effectively use a computer has an edge in the marketplace. In order to successfully compete in an increasingly competitive global marketplace, American industry has dramatically increased their hiring of statisticians for the implementation of these important statistical techniques.