Early Career Profiles: Recent bachelors-level graduates in the mathematical sciences

Abbe Herzig
Assistant Professor of Mathematics Education
SUNY at Albany

Abbe Herzig graduated from Stony Brook with a Bachelor’s degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and a Master’s degree in Statistics.  Her initial job was at Brookhaven National Lab working on environmental health Statistics.  She consulted for the United Nations Statistics Office, the Yale School of Medicine, and the Legal Defense Fund of the NAACP, and then worked for several years as a statistician with Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports and Zillions magazines.

At Consumers Union, Abbe designed experiments to test products, analyzed the resulting data, and helped editors interpret those results for publication in the magazine.  She developed databases of auto test information, and analyzed survey data with hundreds of thousands of records about automobile reliability.  She also advised Consumers Union’s Education department on the development of statistical and mathematical exercises to be included in teaching guides for classroom use of Consumer Reports and Zillions magazines.

She decided to return to university and earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics Education at the University of Wisconsin and a year ago was appointed an Assistant professor in the School of Education at SUNY – Albany, where she teaches mathematical methods and content (including statistics) to pre-service teachers.  For her research about women and students of color leaving mathematics, she draws heavily on her statistical expertise, combining those quantitative research skills with qualitative methodologies.

“The aspect I’ve always enjoyed most about being a professional statistician is that statistical methodology is used practically everywhere.  I’ve had the opportunity to work on a discrimination lawsuit, in scientific research in biology, education, psychology, medicine, and in the physical sciences and engineering.”