Statistics is a multifaceted discipline that presents challenges for its practitioners at many levels of application. The effective practice of statistics begins with a clear understanding of statistical principles and the role they play in quantifying uncertainty in answers to questions of subject matter importance. In today’s collaborative professional environments, however, additional capabilities are needed to enhance one’s effectiveness in integrating statistical insights into organizational settings. Skills such as clearly communicating ideas, actively building trust, and developing bridges among various disciplines can contribute to a statistician’s professional effectiveness. It is not easy, however, to identify a career path for acquiring the various skills needed to effectively present statistical ideas and integrate quantitative solutions into an organizational setting.

A well-known approach to transferring knowledge and fostering collaborative skills useful for professional development of statisticians is the mentor/mentee relationship. Such a relationship is mutually beneficial. The mentor shares workplace knowledge and culture, suggests alternative technical approaches and contributes constructive feedback. The mentee explores novel technical challenges, adopts new professional goals and takes new career risks. In return, the mentor learns from a newly trained statistician and the mentee learns the intricacies of a new workplace culture. The mentor/mentee relationship also benefits an organization by fostering professional development in an environment where engaged and creative employees contribute to workplace productivity.

However, mentoring is also multifaceted. It involves aspects of coaching, advising, consulting, collaborating, championing, teaching, and learning. What mentoring means to one person will almost surely be different for another person.

What is undeniable is that mentoring can be a useful tool in building the capacity of an individual statistician and thereby building the capacity of the organization in which he or she works.

This session will describe a new mentoring effort from the ISI’s Capacity Building Committee. It will feature three speakers and two discussants.

Paper #1: Eric Vance from the University of Colorado Boulder, USA is the chair of a new Mentoring committee within ISI. He will describe ISI’s new mentoring programs and how it can build statistics capacity, especially in developing countries.

Paper #2: Lehana Thabane from McMaster University in Canada will speak about best practices in mentoring, especially when the mentee is from a developing country.

Paper #3: Lisa Bersales from the University of the Philippines will speak about the impacts of mentoring, especially for statisticians in developing countries.

Discussant #1: Sally Evans is the fourth member of the ISI’s committee on mentoring. She will discuss the impacts of mentoring in the private sector.

Discussant #2: Oliver Chinganya is the co-chair of the ISI’s Capacity Building Committee. He will discuss how mentoring factors into other activities related to capacity building.

Matthew Shearing, the other co-chair of the ISI’s Capacity Building Committee will provide his perspective as chair of the session.

Mentoring is multifaceted. It involves aspects of coaching, advising, consulting, collaborating, championing, teaching, and learning. What mentoring means to one person will almost surely be different for another person. In all cases, mentoring can be helpful for improving one’s skills—both technical and professional—in statistics and data science. As such, mentoring can be very useful for building the capacity of individuals and thereby building the statistics capacity of the individuals’ organizations. This session will describe a new mentoring effort from the ISI’s Capacity Building Committee. It will feature three speakers and two discussants statistician and thereby building the capacity of the organization in which he or she works.

Organiser: Prof. Eric Vance 

Chair: Mr Matthew Shearing 

Speaker: Dr Lehana Thabane 

Speaker: Eric Vance 

Speaker: Lisa Bersales 

Discussant:  Sally Evans 

Discussant: Mr Oliver J. M Chinganya