The Department of Statistics at the University of Pittsburgh was established in 1997 and has since grown into a thriving academic community with about 20 tenure-stream and appointment-stream faculty. Though modest in size, the department has built a distinctive national profile through its excellence in both research and education.
Our faculty lead cutting-edge research across a wide spectrum of areas in statistics, data science, and medical applications — including machine learning, data privacy, social networks, clinical trials, psychiatry, and computational biology. These diverse research programs have made the department a hub for interdisciplinary collaboration across the University. Every research faculty member maintains active partnerships with other departments, advancing science within and beyond the field of statistics and securing about $2 million in grant funding annually---reflecting the department’s strong research productivity and impact. On the educational front, the department has been remarkably successful in attracting and training undergraduates. Our programs have expanded from just four majors in 2000 to more than 200 majors and 200 minors today, while in AY25 alone, over 3,800 students enrolled in our courses. This rapid growth reflects both the quality of our instruction and the rising importance of statistics and data science in today’s world. In short, the Department of Statistics unites high-impact research, interdisciplinary collaboration, and educational excellence, making it a vital and visible contributor to the University’s academic mission.
“The undergraduate students I work with are often doing the vast majority of the applied work on research projects. I guide the process and steer them in the right direction, but they actively engage in discussions with scientists and practitioners, and in most cases, with a little experience, they begin to develop ideas and directions on their own. The data analysis skills possessed by many of our upper-level undergraduates surpass those of the domain scientists we collaborate with, so they are able to make genuine contributions.”
Lucas Mentch, assistant professor
Professor Mentch is also the creator of one of our most active student organizations: the “DATAs” undergraduate statistics and data science club. The organization, for which Professor Mentch is the faculty sponsor, hosts various talks and workshops and is designed to be a place for undergraduate students to organize and potentially get involved with things like research activities and predictive competitions.
For more information about our department, or to schedule a visit or tour, please contact the Dietrich School's recruitment team at artsci@pitt.edu.
If you are interested in graduate programs at the Dietrich School, please email asgrad@pitt.edu for more information.