 Celebrating 75 Years of Statistics in CSIRO
Few research organisations can boast such unique statistical beginnings
as CSIRO: our first three statisticians were all women.
All three had trained at Rothamsted Experimental Station in England under Fisher or Yates, two of the founders of modern statistics.
Frances Elizabeth "Betty" Allan (pictured at
right) was CSIRO's first statistician. Her appointment marked the beginning of CSIRO's recognition
that statistics is vital to extracting more information from scientific
research.
Today, there are many statisticians working across CSIRO. CSIRO
Mathematical and Information Sciences alone employs over 100 statisticians
and mathematicians who
work on projects ranging from environmental
monitoring to analysing health data.
Their research has in common using statistical techniques to capture,
understand, and make the best use of numerical information.
At CSIRO, statistics is not just about collecting figures that tell us
things like the percentage of people over 45 who have diabetes, or the
chance of winning lotto (pretty low!). Statistics is an essential tool for
understanding how things work, why things happen, and how we can make
changes to improve all sort of things, from protecting fish stocks in our
oceans, to managing disease risks when we import fruit and vegetables, to
helping prevent adverse reactions to prescription drugs.
To find out more about Betty Allan and careers in statistics at CSIRO,
please choose from the menu at the left.
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