Doctor Sexy

As I was going through some of the papers Tyler has been stashing on top of our piano, I came across this article. I am surprised he hadn't showed it to me himself:

The next sexy job? Statistician (no, really)

At Harvard University, Carrie Grimes majored in anthropology and archaeology, studying Mayan settlment patterns by mapping where artifacts were found. But she was drawn to what she calls 'all of the computer and math stuff' that was part of the job.Now Ms. Grimes does a different kind of digging. She works at Google, where she uses statistical analysis of mounds of data to come up with ways to improve its search engine.
Ms. Grimes is an Internet-age statistician, one of many who are changing the image of the profession as a place for dronish number nerds. They are finding themselves increasingly in demand - and even cool.
'I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,' said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. 'And I'm not kidding.'
The rising stature of statisticians, who can earn $125,000 (U.S.) at top companies in their first year after getting a doctorate, is a byproduct of the recent explosion of digital data. In field after field, computing and the Web are creating new realms of data to explore - sensor signals, surveillance tapes, social network chatter, public records and more. Yet data is merely the raw material of knowledge.
'We're rapidly entering a world where everything can be monitored and measure.' said Erik BrynJolfsson, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for Digital Business. 'but the big problem is going to be the ability of humans to use, analyze and make sense of the data,' he said.
The new statistican breed tackles that problem. They use powerful computers and sophisticated mathematical models to hunt for meaningful patterns and insights in vast troves of data. The applications are as diverse as improving Internet search and online advertising, culling gene sequencing information for cancer research and analyzing sensor location data to optimize the handling of food shipments.
Statisticians are only a small part of an array of experts using modern statistical techniques for data analysis. Computing and numerical skills matter far more than degrees. So the new data sleuths come from backgrounds such as economics, computer science and mathematics.
- New York Times News Service

I've always thought his brain was sexy...now the world is starting to agree.