Master of Statistics - Statistical Genetics Concentration (34 credit hours)
Curriculum
Core Courses (19 credit hours)
ST 512 Experimental Statistics for Biological Sciences II (3 cr)
Covariance, multiple regression, curvilinear regression,
concepts of experimental design, factorial experiments, confounded
factorials, individual degrees of freedom and split-plot experiments.
Computing laboratory addressing computational issues and use of statistical
software.
ST 521 Statistical Theory I (3 cr)
Probability tools for statistics: description of
discrete and absolutely continuous distributions, expected values,
moments, moment generating functions, transformation of random variables,
marginal and conditional distributions, independence, order statistics,
multivariate distributions, concept of random sample, derivation of
many sampling distributions.
ST 522 Statistical Theory II (3 cr)
General framework for statistical inference. Point
estimators: biased and unbiased, minimum variance unbiased, least mean
square error, maximum likelihood and least squares, asymptotic properties.
Interval estimators and tests of hypotheses: confidence intervals,
power functions, Neyman-Pearson lemma, likelihood ratio tests,
unbiasedness, efficiency and sufficiency.
ST 552 Linear Models and Variance Components (3 cr)
Theory of estimation and testing in full and non-full
rank linear models. Normal theory distributional properties. Least
squares principle and the Gauss-Markoff theorem. Estimability and
properties of best linear unbiased estimators. General linear hypothesis.
Application of dummy variable methods to elementary classification models
for balanced and unbalanced data. Analysis of covariance. Variance
components estimation for balanced data.
ST/GN 721 Genetic Data Analysis (3 cr)
Analysis of discrete data, illustrated with genetic
data on morphological characters allozymes, restriction fragment
length polymorphisms and DNA sequences. Maximum likelihood estimation,
including iterative procedures. Numerical resampling. Development of
statistical techniques for characterizing genetic disequilibrium and
diversity. Measures of population structure and genetic distance.
Construction of phylogenetic trees. Finding alignments and similarities
between DNA sequences. Locating genes with markers.
GN 703 Population and Quantitative Genetics (3 cr)
Mutation and origin of genetic variation.
Measuring genetic variation in natural populations. Gene and
genotype frequencies. Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. Values, means,
genetic and environmental variance, heritability of quantitative
traits. Random genetic drift and inbreeding. Natural and artificial
selection. Theory and tests of models of maintenance of genetic
variation. Molecular evolution of genes and proteins. Genome evolution.
ST 641 Statistical Consulting (1 cr)
Students participate in regularly scheduled supervised
statistical consulting sessions with faculty member and client, write a
consultant's report for each session, and attend regularly scheduled
meetings with instructor and other student consultants to
present and discuss consulting experiences.
Elective Courses (15 credits)
Master's degree students are required to take 15 credit hours of electives, of which at least
6 credit hours must be in the Department of Statistics.
These credits plus the 19 credits for core courses outlined above yield the
minimum of 34 credit hours required for the Master of Statistics degree.
Electives are chosen from the NC State
University Graduate
Catalog and must be approved by the student’s advisory committee.
Electives of special relevance include:
- GN 735 Functional Genomics (3 cr)
- CSC 530 Computational Methods for Molecular Biology (3 cr)
- GN 701 Molecular Genetics (3 cr)
- GN 755 Advanced Population and Evolutionary Genomics (3 cr)
- ST 520 Statistical Principles of Clinical Trials and Epidemiology (3 cr)
- ST/GN 756 Computational Molecular Evolution (3 cr)
- ST/GN 757 Statistics for Molecular Quantitative Genetics (3 cr)
- ST/GN 770 Statistical Concepts in Genetics (3 cr)
- ST 790G Statistics in Genetic Epidemiology (3 cr)
- GN/ANS 713 Quantitative Genetics and Breeding (3 cr)
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