A Summer Boot Camp for Biostatistics Grows and Incorporates Texting

A biostatistics boot camp for area high school students is only in its second year of operation, but is growing rapidly and incorporating technology that appeals to every teenager.

The Young Scholars Program sponsored by the Yale Center for Analytic Studies (YCAS) hosted eight students in July (up from four last year), and now includes a teacher-in-residence, an undergraduate attendee and a undergraduate intern (who was one of last year’s attendees).

The program is also incorporating everyday technology—cell phones and texting—into its curriculum. The young scholars receive occasional texts to reinforce a point or that make reference to a prior discussion. Each morning, the students sit shoulder to shoulder for a lecture by Jim Dziura, YCAS’ associate director and a research scientist in medicine and pediatrics, as part of the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation’ course designed for medical school faculty and researchers.

“These kids feel great taking in lectures geared toward Yale doctors,” said William “Casey” King, Ph.D., YCAS’ executive director and the facilitator of the texting initiative. “And to sometimes know the answers to questions posed by a doctor is empowering.” King also recognizes that it is summer and the students are replacing traditional summer activities with long days of academics and lots of homework, so he doesn’t mind throwing in the occasional text to lighten the mood. (After one such prompt, the kids decided Dziura would be a Hogwarts Ravenclaw).

The program is funded by two family foundations, and Best Buy has donated an iPad, an Ipod and an Ipod shuffle for the three students who answer the most questions correctly on material presented over the two weeks.

“We’re trying to level educational disparities,” says Peter Peduzzi, Ph.D. YCAS director and professor of in the division of Biostatistics. “Kids don’t get exposed to what their potential is if they don’t have a sense of what is out there.”

Peduzzi envisions YCAS as a center that does more than collaborate and provide statistical support to Yale researchers. “We are trying to grow our own,” he says.

The National Institutes of health has identified biostatistics as a field with a shortage of trained workers. Peduzzi appreciates what others did for him—getting him into college on a caddy’s scholarship — and he is passionate about nurturing kids and providing access to a wider perspective on what kinds of careers one can have in math and science.

After the first year of this program, a bump in high school statistics enrollment was noted in New Haven public schools. Word spread about Yale’s program, says Noelle Shipley, a statistics teacher at Wilbur Cross High School in New Haven, and it has spawned greater interest in math and statistics.