Facilities

Orientation

The Department of Statistics is situated on the third and fourth floors of Evans Hall, in the northeastern quadrant of the campus, north of the Campanile bell tower. Two or three grad students share each office. If you're lucky, you'll get an office on the west side of the building, with a view of most of the campus as well as the bay.

Campus map

Computing facilities

The Department of Statistics provides a variety of facilities to its graduate students. In addition, funds are offered to new students for the purchase of computing equipment. Whether a student primarily uses his or her own machine or department equipment is usually a personal choice.

Statistical Computing Facility

The Statistical Computing Facility (SCF) is a unit of the academic Department of Statistics, formally organized in 1986. In support of the University's mission of teaching, research, and public service, the SCF provides computing, networking, and information resources to the community of students, faculty, and staff of the Statistics Department, Biostatistics Graduate Group in the School of Public Health, and the Econometrics Laboratory of the Department of Economics.

The mission of the SCF is to provide the Statistics community with state-of-the-art statistical research tools, services, and technical knowledge to create opportunities for carrying out cutting-edge research activities, innovative instructional programs, and effective administration and communication within the community. The SCF is operated under the direction of the Facility Director, Professor Deborah Nolan.

iMacs

The SCF has a large number of iMacs, located in the undergraduate computer rooms (see below).

Sun Systems

At present the SCF has several dozen SUNs running under a UNIX operating system. These include about 40 SPARC stations, one 4/280, and one SPARC server 2000.

Computer rooms

The Department has four computer rooms. Rooms 342 and 432 Evans contain iMacs; these rooms are primarily used for undergraduate class computing. Room 342 also serves as a teaching laboratory where TAs hold office hours.

Rooms 491 and 446 Evans are for graduate student use and research. Room 491 contains 15 SPARC stations and two laser printers. Three more workstations are located in room 446. Department faculty, researchers, and statistics and biostatistics graduate students may get keys to rooms 491 and 446 from the department office; keys are necessary for evening or weekend access.

Software

Statistical computing is most often done with the program R, an open source version of S-PLUS. Other software such as MATLAB and SAS are also used, as are the languages C and FORTRAN. Classes are available for those unfamiliar with statistical computing.

For report writing, many faculty prefer the program LaTeX^?. Many students prefer Microsoft Office (or equivalent).

Accounts

Three types of accounts are available. Students in statistics and biostatistics should open personal accounts with the SCF; see James Blakly in 407 Evans. James also has manuals and documentation for loan or sale.

Another account is available by request from James Blakly for maintaining a personal webpage on the stat.berkeley.edu domain.

Class accounts are provided to students taking department courses that require use of the SCF facilities.

Most seminars and social events are announced via email. You should ensure you're on the grads mailing list, and check your email frequently. Department mail may be redirected to external accounts.

Computing grants for new students

As of 2006, incoming students have the choice of an iMac for their office, or a grant towards the purchase of a laptop.

SCF Personnel

Rick Kawin: Computer Systems and Facility Manager email: kawin@stat office: 499 Evans, 510-643-7407 office hours: by appointment.

Phil Spector: Statistics Consultant and Applications Manager email: spector@stat office: 495 Evans, 510-642-9056 office hours: MWF 10-12, Tu Th 2-5. Phil is the statistical computing expert, responsible for the statistics and applications software. He also provides advanced consulting.

James Blakly: Administrative Manager email: scfadmin@stat office: 407 Evans, 510-642-7921 office hours: M-F 9:30-5 See him to open a personal account.

Ryan Lovett: Programmer/Analyst email: ryan@stat office: 497 Evans, 510-642-5497 office hours: M-F 9:30-5

Biostatistics facilities

Biostatistics students have full access to the SCF; in addition, room 114 in Haviland Hall has several SUNs running under a UNIX operating system. Once issued an account with biostatistics, you are free to use these facilities. There is also a terminal room in 307 Haviland. 340A Haviland may or may not still house Windows machines; it is available to biostatistics graduate students during off-peak hours.

Additional Facilities

Many additional facilities are available to graduate students, including office space, a departmental lending library, a conference room, and a coffee room.

Offices

All registered graduate students in statistics and biostatistics may have office space. Offices are equipped with desks, chairs, terminals, bookcases, and file cabinets; telephones are not provided.

Jerzy Neyman Room

Room 1011 Evans, the Jerzy Neyman Room, is set up like a conference room. It is used for department seminars, meetings, some classes, and parties. The room offers a beautiful bay view and access to the tenth-floor balcony.

Libraries

The first floor of Evans Hall houses the Astronomy-Mathematics-Statistics Library including an extensive collection of statistics and probability monographs, texts, proceedings, and journals.

In addition, the department has two libraries of its own: The textbook library in 367 Evans has copies of many of the texts used in department courses; these are especially convenient for instructors and teaching assistants, but may also be useful when you are taking a course or doing research. In addition, the Betty Scott Library, adjacent to 367 Evans, contains a number of journals and monographs from the SGSA and the late Betty Scott, a former faculty member in the department.

Many journals and other resources are available online through the library. These can be accesses off-campus using the library's proxy service.

Photocopy machine

GSIs and GSRs may use the photocopy machines in the department office for purposes related to their employment. Due to budget restrictions, GSIs are requested to limit the number of handouts they provide their students. Students can copy limited amounts of personal material on the photocopy machines at $0.05 per impression.

Keys and security

Students may receive keys for various doors from office staff. A deposit is required for each key. Different keys open the terminal room 342 and the teaching labs, rooms 446 and 491 which contain computer equipment, the SGSA library, the Neyman seminar room, and so on. Your student ID card may be set up for after hours access to Evans. See Angie for information on how to get cards and keys.

-- BradLuen - 19 Jan 2007