Symposium on Fitting Statistical Distributions to Data (FSDD2006)

Date: March 5, 2006 to March 11, 2006

Hosted by:  Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Auburn University

Organizer: Dr. Edward J. Dudewicz

Biosketches:

Dr. Helen MacGillivray is a Professor in the Queensland University of Technology’s School of Mathematical Sciences, having also worked at the University of Queensland and the Australian National University. Professor MacGillivray’s statistical research has been particularly focussed on the theory, understanding and applications of distributional shape, new distribution families and fitting distributions. In a series of papers, she and her postgraduate students developed extensive theory that encompassed all prior work in skewness and kurtosis, including theory analysing and enabling simultaneous measures and interpretations of skewness and kurtosis in asymmetric distributions. These works lead to the development and application of new distributional families that combine the results of the above research with ideas from Tukey’s and Hoaglin’s g-and-h distributions.

Helen has also published extensively on statistics and mathematics learning and teaching. Her university teaching and curriculum design experience of 30 years extends across all areas of statistical sciences and their applications, across all levels of subjects, all class sizes and most disciplines, particularly engineering and science. During the last decade her work in teaching and learning has received support through eight national or university grants. In 2003, her teaching performance was acknowledged by a Queensland University of Technology award for distinguished teaching, and as a finalist in the Australian Awards for University Teaching. She has written and presented national and international papers and workshops particularly on statistical learning through parallel projects; resources for teachers; mathematical transition, support and extension issues; and statistical learning in other disciplines.

Helen has played key roles in mathematics and statistics education with a range of state and national educational organisations, and has chaired reviews of university departments and centres. She has acted as a consultant for the Australian government on numeracy benchmarks and state syllabi development across all levels. She has founded and directs a variety of successful extension and enrichment programs in mathematics and statistics for high school students. She is currently director of Queensland University of Technology’s Maths Access Centre which provides university-wide support for mathematics and statistics learning.

Helen has been President of the Statistical Society of Australia Inc and the Australian Mathematical Sciences Council, Board member of the Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Sciences, chair of an international forum on statistical literacy, and an organiser for the International Conference on Teaching Statistics, Australian Statistical and Statistical Education Conferences, and the Australasian Engineering Education Conference. She has worked as a consultant with the Royal Statistical Society Centre in Statistical Education and the UK Learning and Teaching Support Network for Mathematics, Statistics and OR. She recently became the first female honorary life member of the Statistical Society of Australia.