untzkatz

What about all the software skills though? Increasingly, data science is a field that requires the engineering aspects. You are competing with people who can make apps and put models into actual devices. Or dealing with big data technologies like Spark, Hadoop and cloud systems like AWS. This stuff is missing from Biostat curriculums. This is the aspect I feel my MS Biostat didn’t prep me for. I know statistical ML, but there aren’t many jobs in this area. May be though because I only have an MS, and one reason I want to do a PhD is to get those research scientist jobs that actually are stat ML focused. But even then I worry that there aren’t many of them and many PhDs end up needing to have the SWE skills anyways. That and right now I am stuck in a boring biostat job which is largely documentation and writing/communication focused which I hate. The actual stats is simple. It seems my manager who is from biostat himself I guess is not even that interested in the stat aspects anymore these days. I want something more computationally heavy where I can use both advanced classical and ML methods and less writing/regulatory.

What are some of the methods used in Pharma biostat outside clinical trials? And yea I am thinking of doing a PhD but I don’t know if I want to do Biostats again vs something like a DS PhD. It feels like the latter has a lot more interesting opportunities in industry, and seems to do more cutting edge biomedical data analysis, in big companies like Verily and Genentech. The branding is tough with Biostats I feel, because most jobs I see on LI are super formal SAPs, SAS, and the submissions. I don’t even want to touch SAS again lol. Outside that it seems like there are omics jobs, but these need the domain knowledge and my program never covered them. So if I do Biostats I feel a good amount of Bioinformatics needs to be done too. I have gone for those positions but I lack the domain knowledge of all these sequencing technologies.

Did anyone apply to Boston University’s new CDS PhD program? The deadline was actually late April 1 since it was announced later than typical. Have you heard back at all?

Is there really a “need” though for the PhD in Pharma from an objective sense? A ton of the biostat work in pharma is not even actually statistical stuff, its mostly regulatory and documentation related. Pharma especially is super conservative and even uses SAS, which is the opposite of cutting edge. Having worked as an MS stat in biotech I hate it and that is why I’m looking at a PhD. But the PhDs Biostat I see in this area aren’t exactly doing the cutting edge work either. They are writing the same boring protocols and validation reports I am. Its not data analysis focused at all, as opposed to DS in tech.