A growing number of our students decide to pursue doctoral studies after graduation. Graduate placements of MA in Statistics alumni span several countries, institutions, and diverse fields and disciplines. We offer research and faculty-led hands-on project opportunities to encourage students who are interested in advancing their academic and research pursuits. In particular,  the MA Mentored Research and select Ph.D. level courses are open to all such students. Mentored Research is divided into small project sessions or can be used by students to work with an individual faculty member on a specific topic. Topics span various areas, ranging from Machine Learning and Data Science to specific problems in financial and medical research. Applications are reviewed by course faculty or the Director of the MA Program.

MA2PHD Honors Research is a mentored on-campus learning and research program providing our PhD-oriented MA students with research experience. It allows our students to gain experience and skills to grow as researchers while providing faculty from other departments RAs with rigorous preparation in Statistics and Machine Learning. Columbia University and off-campus project owners can submit their MA Honors Research Projects applications here. 

In addition, our students can apply for the department’s yearly Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) Conference Awards to present their work, network with statisticians in academia, industry, and government and participate in professional development opportunities. The award covers the full cost of conference registration and a portion of travel and lodging costs.

The MA2PHD Club, advised by professors Banu Baydil and Tian Zheng, is for MA students who have strong academic preparation and are planning to apply for a doctoral program after graduation. The club meets on a weekly basis and is a way for Ph.D. bound students to connect and support one another as well as find out about relevant opportunities. Activities include student-led presentations of scientific papers and Ph.D. application processes.

Our Fall Ph.D. Information Session is open to all MA students. It is moderated by professors and advanced Ph.D. students. The discussion revolves around topics relating to academic preparation and career opportunities in research and the corporate world.

Alumni Profiles

Yanjin Li

Yanjin Li

Class of 2017

"I am a first-year mathematical informatics PhD student at the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology at the Yamanishi Lab researching model-change detection in online advertising platforms. Studying applied data science taught me how important it was to improve my programming skills. My statistical inference courses gave me a solid theoretical foundation, especially when inventing new algorithms and frameworks, and my machine learning courses gave me an understanding of machine-learning algorithms and their relationships. These are three very essential areas to master in order to become a successful data and/or algorithm scientist."

Lin Yu

Lin Yu

Class of 2014

"I am currently a Research Engineer at Verizon Media where I am responsible for identifying business trends and discovering information hidden in vast amounts of data, and working closely with the business team to develop and improve new product features. My daily work typically includes creating various machine learning-based tools, conducting end-to-end testing to deliver better products, performing statistical analysis, and doing ad-hoc analysis and presenting results in a clear manner. After completing my MA at Columbia, I joined North Carolina State’s statistics department where I obtained my PhD. My experience in the MA program provided me with a solid foundation in research and methodology. The faculty supported my interests and guided me through the program and after."

Yiran Jiang

Yiran Jiang

Class of 2018

“I am a second year PhD student in Statistics at Purdue University. I received my Bachelors degree in Economics at Fudan University and Masters degree in Statistics at Columbia. I took 15 courses during my MA study, most of them are from the Department of Statistics. These courses helped me build concepts in Statistics and allowed me to continue my study in PhD level courses.”

For more Alumni Profiles, click here.

PhD Placement

Graduates of the MA in Statistics program have been accepted into the following Ph.D. programs:

2021 – 2018 (partial survey results)

2017 and Earlier  (partial survey results)