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This story appeared in the Fall 2020 Letters & Science magazine.

Statistically speaking, it’s a great time to be a statistics major at UW-Madison.

The major, which hosted less than 50 students as recently as a decade ago, ballooned to a whopping 468 students in fall of 2019, including an increase of more than 200 students in the past two years. And the department is included under the auspices of the College of Letters & Science’s new School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences (CDIS), where it houses a new (and already popular) data sciences major beginning this fall. More than 175 current students and more than 130 incoming students have expressed an interest in it.

What’s driving the sudden increase? “Businesses are increasingly relying on data for their decision-making,” says Cecile Ane, a professor of statistics and botany. “The increase in data availability drives an explosion of jobs that need data skills in every sector.”

Statistics, the science of learning from data, is like a Swiss Army knife in that it pairs easily with other academic disciplines. Students majoring in math and computer sciences often double-major in statistics, but the department is also seeing students in economics, business, psychology, biology, linguistics, global health, engineering, sports/entertainment, sociology, astronomy, and even fashion design expressing interest in statistics. The career paths can be equally diverse. A recent department alumni event featured graduates with statistics degrees who were working at places like the Mayo Clinic, CUNA Mutual Group and the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Association.

“My biology colleagues often ask me what species I work on,” Ane says. “As a statistician, the methods I use and develop are applicable to all of them, from large animals and plants to small bacteria and viruses.” Ane points out that statistical methods are the reason scientists know that the virus that causes COVID-19 was introduced many separate times into Wisconsin from elsewhere in the United States and from other countries. Professor of Statistics Brian Yandell was recently awarded one of nine University of Wisconsin Area Research Foundation COVID-19 Accelerator Grants to develop a method for visualizing and tracking the virus’s spread in Wisconsin counties with small populations.

Juliana Brandt, a rising junior from Orange County, Calif., who is double-majoring in mathematics and statistics, chose UW-Madison because of the statistics department’s breadth and depth of offerings.

“I’d like to work for a tech company or one that shep­herds new discoveries,” says Brandt, who aced an AP statistics class in high school. “The statistics department really lets me find my own path.”