Harvard School of Public Health - Yearbook (Cambridge, MA)

Page 15 text:

In addition to trying to spread the gospel of statistics throughout the School of Public Health as a whole, the Department is, of course, also concerned with training biostatistical specialists who will carry on the good work at other times and places. During the current year, the Department of Biostatistics has been caught up in the frenzied activities of the computer age. As spring approached, the installation of an I.B.M. machine unit in the basement of No. 1 Shattuck Street was just being completed. This unit, which has a range of punch card equipment from the basic punch through the 101 statistical sorter up to the 1620 computer, is expected to contribute in many ways to the teaching of data processing methods and to serve as a link to the University’s larger computer center at Cambridge. The computer will be available to students for work on their problems (possibly even including laboratory problems in Biostatistics 1 a, b), and for research work in the school generally. The research activities of the members of the Department of Biostatistics reflect the broad range of problems in public health where statistical methods are of particular importance combined with certain idiosyncrasies in the interests of Department mem¬ bers. Thus, during the present year, major pieces of work have been done on problems of cancer epidemiology, child growth and development, opthalmology and genetics. Less intensively, the staff is continually involved in a wide range of consultation on the design and analysis of studies being carried out not only at the School of Public Health but in the Boston medical community general ly. 11

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Left to right —Dr. Glasser, Mrs. Menken, Dr. Reed, Miss Bishop, Dr. Worcester, Miss Wasserboehr. DEPARTMENT OF BIOSTATISTICS Robert B. Reed, Ph.D., A.M. (hon.), Professor of Biostatistics and Head of the Department Jane Worcester, A.B., Dr.P.H., Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology Margaret E. Drolette, A.B., M.P.H., Associate in Biostatistics (Absent 1962-63) Marvin N. Glasser, B.B.A., M.P.H., S.D. in Hyg., Associate in Biostatistics and Epidemiology Paul M. Densen, A.B., S.D., Visiting Lecturer on Biostatistics Yvonne M. M. Bishop, B.A., S.M. in Hyg., Instructor in B ostat sties Jane A. Menken, A.B., S.M. in Hyg., Assistant in Biostatistics T HE Department of Biostatistics goes about its work with a well-recognized bias— a bias in favor of explicit and quantitative formulation of all statements about public health. As Moroney puts it in one of the chapter titles in his Facts from Figures, statistics is the art of learning how to be precise though vague. All students at the School are exposed to this art through the Department’s teaching and this teaching constitutes the major focus of interest a nd the largest expenditure of energy of the Department members. 10

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DEMOGRAPHY and HUMAN ECOLOGY Dr. John C. Snyder Henry Pickering Walcott Professor of Microbiology, Acting Head of the Department 12