About CENS

Council for Emerging and New Statisticians (CENS) was formed in 2012 by ENAR’s Regional Advisory Board (RAB) in 2012 to help ENAR better address the needs of all students and recent graduates. CENS is composed of 10 graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, or recent graduates, who are ENAR members from academia, government, or private industry. With the help of the RAB Liaison, CENS members collaborate to:

• Bring student/recent graduate concerns to the attention of RAB and ENAR
• Work to help ENAR better serve all students/recent graduates
• Advise and help implement ideas to enhance the benefits of ENAR membership and to increase awareness of the benefits of ENAR membership to students
• Organize a CENS session at each ENAR Spring Meeting
• Assist in planning events that help advance students' and recent graduates’ education and careers
• Contribute to the development of ENAR’s social media presence

CENS Mission

CENS seeks to advocate for the needs and concerns of students and recent graduates in collaboration with ENAR’s Regional Advisory Board. Through annual events at the ENAR Spring Meeting, CENS strives to promote the benefits of participating in the ENAR community, support the advancement of students and recent graduates, and facilitate stronger connections within the statistical community.

Join CENS

We will be recruiting new members March-April 2023! Each member is appointed to a 2-year term. Within CENS, three or four people are chosen to participate in the steering committee, which reports to the RAB chair. Members of the steering committee will serve an additional year on CENS. CENS members will meet in person yearly at the ENAR Spring Meeting and participate in conference calls throughout the year to plan events and address issues as they arise. If you are interested in joining CENS, please email enar.cens@gmail.com.

Upcoming Events

• CENS Session at ENAR 2023: Kickstart your Career: How to Maximize Those Early Years
  Monday, March 20, 2023 from 3:45 PM – 5:30 PM
  The transition from graduate school to navigating the unknowns of the job market is challenging for every new statistician. Proper training, efficient networking, and building a professional profile are some of the early initiatives to prepare graduate students for this change. Statisticians are trained in modeling and data analysis; however, the real world job market requires skills beyond technical knowledge, including communication, presentation, leadership, and collaborative skills, as well as pitching one’s ideas and goals, and being able to advocate for oneself. As a group of emerging statisticians, CENS would like to fill this gap and invite early-career statisticians to discuss the unique challenges that early-career statisticians might face in a new work environment. This panel includes both academic and industry statisticians at the MS and PhD level, several of whom graduated in the last five years. Their valuable insights and mentoring guidance will be useful for newly-emerging statisticians to build a path to kickstart their careers and achieve their goals.
• ENAR Networking Mixer
  Monday, March 20, 2023 from 5:30 PM - 6:30 PM
  All students and recent graduates are invited to attend the CENS Networking Mixer. Registration is not required—so please plan to attend!

• ENAR Networking Lunch
  Tuesday, March 21, 2023 from 12:30 PM - 1:30 PM at local restaurants.
  CENS will organize lunches for groups of attendees who share similar interests. The goal is to help attendees meet and network with each other. Although CENS will help to coordinate lunch at local restaurants, please note that lunch is at your own expense and CENS will not be able to cater to special dietary requirements. Closer to the meeting time, CENS will email all attendees interested in this networking event to request information to set up the groups and the lunch reservations.

  Participants meet at the CENS table in the Exhibition Hall at 12:15 PM before walking with their assigned group to a nearby restaurant for networking and lunch! Participation is open to all meeting attendees. If you would like to participate, please select the CENS lunch option on the registration form or email CENS at enar.cens@gmail.com.

CENS Committee

RAB Liaison: Lucy D’Agostino McGowan, Wake Forest University

CENS Steering Committee 2022-2023:
Anna Eames Seffernick, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital (co-chair)
Sarah Samorodnitsky, University of Minnesota (co-chair)
Daniel Mork, Harvard University
Arinjita Bhattacharyya, Merck

CENS Members 2022-2023:
Melissa Jay Smith, University of Alabama Birmingham
Siddhesh Kulkarni, University of Louisville
Arielle Marks-Anglin, Mathematica
Tianyi Sun, Vanderbilt University
Ziqiao Wang, Eli Lilly
Summer Zhang, University of Chicago

Contact Info

If anyone has any questions or comments for CENS, please contact us at enar.cens@gmail.com. Don’t forget to "Like" us on Facebook and join our LinkedIn group.