The Research Services Graduate Assistants

Graduate Statistical Assistants (GSAs) and Graduate Research Assistants (GRAs)

Staff of the Research Services Graduate Assistant Program

The Graduate Statistical Assistant program, established in September 2000 by the academic administration at Boston College, is a component of Academic Technology Services (ATS). The program was originally administered by the Moderators of the Faculty Microcomputer Resource Center (FMRC), which is now a unit of Academic Technology Services. Ms. Rani Dalgin manages the GSA and GRA programs. Please forward inquiries and requests to dalgin@bc.edu. Within the FMRC, Faculty Moderator Christopher F Baum is the GSA program liaison with Research and Instructional Technology Services (RITS) and the Libraries.

The three Graduate Statistical Assistants (GSAs) for 2004-2005 are:

• Mr. Rasim Ozcan (ozcanr@bc.edu), a sixth-year doctoral student in the Department of Economics, works closely with Ms. Rani Dalgin (dalgin@bc.edu) and Dr. Petia Petrova (petrova@bc.edu) in supporting statistical applications (Stata, SPSS, and SAS) and data management.

• Ms. Paola Zerilli (zerillip@bc.edu), is a sixth-year doctoral student in the Department of Economics. Ms. Zerilli works closely with Dr. Constantin Andronache (andronac@bc.edu) in supporting Matlab, Mathematica, ArcView/GIS, and FORTRAN.

• Mr. Karen Simonyan (simonyak@bc.edu), a sixth-year doctoral student in Carroll School of Management, works closely with Ms. Rani Dalgin (dalgin@bc.edu) and Dr. Petia Petrova (petrova@bc.edu) in supporting statistical applications (Stata, SPSS, and SAS) and data management.

In addition:

• Ms. Vivianne Do (dovi@bc.edu), a second year School Counseling Master's student in the Lynch Graduate School of Education, has experience with SPSS and the UNIX environment. Vivianne holds a B.Eng. from McGill University and has experience in supporting technical applications. She assists Dr. Tony Schreiner (schreian@bc.edu) in supporting UNIX servers.

• Mr. Andrew Samuel (samuela@bc.edu), a sixth year doctoral candidate in the Department of Economics at B.C., works on special ATS projects for Dr. Ted Gaiser (gaiser@bc.edu) and helps maintain the Virtual Data Center.

Over the past several years, GSAs and GRAs have worked on improving access to statistical databases in a variety of disciplines. Those efforts are reflected in the Statistical Data Catalog collection in the Quest system.

Faculty who would benefit from GSA support should contact Ms. Rani Dalgin, the GSA coordinator or contact the GSAs directly for assistance with:

• statistical packages, conversion utilities, and database access and retrieval methods
• advice on alternative software that might be used for a specific analysis
• resolution of programming problems ('debugging'), using any available ATS, vendor, and training resources
• a cumulative collection of web-based documentation to assist users with packages, databases, and web-centric resources for statistical computing.

GSAs, hired and supervised by RITS, liaise between the users of statistical computing services, RITS professionals, and Library professionals responsible for database acquisition and cataloging. GSAs are available for consultation during the academic year for 15 hours per week. We encourage you to contact your GSA via email to set up an appointment.

Recent access statistics for /GStat