Paul Switzer : An Oral History
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Paul Switzer, Emeritus Professor of Statistics and Environmental Earth System Sciences, shares memories from throughout his career at Stanford. Switzer comments on his upbringing in a Jewish community in Canada; how his early jobs with insurance led to an interest in mathematics and statistics; and his path to a joint appointment at Stanford in Statistics and Earth Sciences. Turning to his time at Stanford, he shares memories of student activism in the late 1960s, his service in undergraduate admissions, and the trajectory of his own research in statistics and the environment.
- Summary
- Parents’ immigration from Ukraine to Canada • Growing up in a Jewish immigrant neighborhood in Winnipeg, Canada • Job working at an insurance company rather than go to college • Growing up during World War II and the Holocaust • Zionist bent of school and neighborhood • Studying mathematics at University of Manitoba • Decision to stick with mathematics for graduate school • Working for Prudential Insurance Company in New Jersey during two undergraduate summers • Decision to attend Harvard to study statistics • Marriage and adjustment to the US • Dissertation on spatial modeling • Harvard’s Statistics Department • Harvard classmates, including Tom Lehrer • Getting a job at Stanford without applying • Joint appointment between Statistics Department and Geology Department • Stanford Statistics Department in the 1960s • History and growth of Stanford Statistics • Statistics as exclusively a graduate department • Teaching service courses for undergraduate students from other departments • School of Earth Sciences in the mid-1960s • Tenure process and review by two departments • Reorganization in the School of Earth Sciences over time • Statistics Department’s collaborations and joint appointments with other departments and schools • Department of Statistics growth and broadening interest in applied problems • Growth of Stanford in the 1960s • Undergraduate admissions committee in the 1970s • Overturning Jane Stanford’s cap on the number of women enrolled in the university • Preferences for applicants with engineering interests during the 1970s • Returning to the Committee on Undergraduate Admission and Financial Aid in the late 2000s • Adding alumni interviews to the undergraduate admissions process • Evaluating the effect of preferences in admissions • Substantial increases in the availability of financial aid • Chairing the Department of Statistics • Changes of departmental boundaries within the small School of Earth Sciences • Protests at Stanford in the late 1960s • Efforts to end classified research at Stanford • Increasing violence on campus in 1970 • Testifying at the hearing for the dismissal of Bruce Franklin • Creation of the Free University by Jim Ware and Dale Borglum • Activism movements such as Black Panthers and Venceremos in the wider Bay Area and ties to Stanford • Founding a chapter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament while a student at University of Manitoba in 1950s • Political activities in college later causing a delay in getting his green card • Registering for the US draft • Impacts of the draft on higher education • Protests around Hubert Humphrey’s visit to Stanford • Views on Stanford’s leadership during the 1960s and 1970s • Loma Prieta Earthquake and damage to Switzer’s house • Impact of Stanford’s financial troubles in the 1990s • Changes to Stanford’s campus • Stanford’s affiliations with outside organizations and a shift from public to private entities • Stanford’s institutes: Woods Institute, Food Research Institute, Hoover Institution • Charm of Stanford’s Main Quad • Early research interest in spatial statistics • Application of statistics to environmental problems • Growth of research on the environment in the 1970s • Research on air quality in the Los Angeles basin • Collaborations with Wayne Ott at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) • Societal Institute of the Mathematical Sciences (SIMS) and work on environmetrics • Growth of environmental studies in the Stanford Earth Sciences curriculum • Improvements in environmental monitoring technology, data, and computing resources • Interest in satellite data analysis and spatial modeling • Time as a visiting scientist at the EPA • Writing technical reports on environmental statistics • Long-standing relationship with the EPA and the importance of statistics to policy • Project as a graduate student on bathymetry • Collaboration with École des Mines de Paris on definition of kriging • Center for Indoor Air Research • Funding sources and grants • Consulting work with a Bay Area dairy company on designing tasting experiments • Work with graduate students on evaluating ore reserves and the tobacco industry • Teaching statistical consulting in retirement • 1983 report on satellite imagery gaining interest many years later • Paper citations • Relationship between applied and theoretical work • Editing the Journal of the American Statistical Association and Statistical Science • Sabbaticals in Australia and Israel • Attempt at lecturing in Hebrew • Taking short sabbaticals with wife and son along • Israel in the aftermath of the Six-Day War • Teaching style: never using notes from previous versions of the class or lecturing from a textbook • Teaching in Stanford’s overseas program in Paris • Teaching undergraduates vs. graduate students • Approach to graduate advising • Current challenges in the field of statistics, especially involving large volumes of data • Observations regarding today’s statistics students • Challenges facing Earth Sciences • Statistics applied to climate change and climate modeling • Reflections on career • Takeaways from advising current undergraduate students
Description
| Type of resource | sound recording-nonmusical, text, still image |
|---|---|
| Extent | 2 audio files; 1 text file; 1 photograph |
| Place | Stanford (Calif.) |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
| Date created | November 28, 2018 - 2018-12-06 |
| Language | English |
| Digital origin | born digital |
Creators/Contributors
| Interviewee | Switzer, Paul | |
|---|---|---|
| Creator | Switzer, Paul | |
| Interviewer | Torre, Alicia | |
| Publisher | Stanford Historical Society |
Subjects
| Subject | Switzer, Paul |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford University. Department of Statistics |
| Subject | Stanford School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences |
| Subject | Jews, Canadian |
| Genre | Interview |
Bibliographic information
| Transcript |
|
|---|---|
| Finding Aid | |
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/bg759fv0960 |
| Location | SC0932 |
| Repository | Stanford University. Libraries. Department of Special Collections and University Archives |
Access conditions
- Use and reproduction
- The materials are open for research use and may be used freely for non-commercial purposes with an attribution. For commercial permission requests, please contact the Stanford University Archives (universityarchives@stanford.edu).
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Collection
Stanford Historical Society Oral History Program interviews, 1999-2022
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