College of Science

Dr. Alana Unfried, Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, recently received a new National Science Foundation (NSF) Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) award for $600,000. This 3-year grant is aimed towards developing new instruments assessing undergraduate student and instructor attitudes towards statistics and data science. Nationally-collected data will be used to assess and understand best practices in statistics and data science education to improve the pipeline to statistics and data science careers. The grant will fund statistics and computer science research students for survey analysis and website development throughout the 3-year period.

Dr. Unfried’s research interests focus on statistics education, including statistical service learning, co-requisite courses, and the development and validation of instruments assessing attitudes towards statistics. She also enjoys consulting work and collaborating with STEM and education faculty on improving student attitudes toward science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

The Statistics bachelor of science (B.S.) degree is a newly offered degree at CSUMB, first offered to students in Fall 2019. This program is designed for two paths: for students entering into the workforce immediately after obtaining their degree (such as industry and federal agencies) or for students hoping to pursue graduate degrees (M.S., M.A., or Ph.D.) in statistics, biostatistics, data science, and related fields requiring statistical skills. The Department of Mathematics and Statistics is planning to offer a new minor in data science in the near future.