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78 Accidental biostatistics professorFor my second and subsequent years at ISU the department appointed meto a National Institute of Health (NIH) biostatistics traineeship that paid allexpenses and an attractive stipend. I had never heard the word biostatistics.I especially enjoyed my ISU sampling courses, building upon my initialinterest in this topic from the Kinsey et al. (1948, 1953) reports and theCochran et al. (1954) critique. Most of the other doctoral students dislikedsampling: boring topic and too many formulas. I found sampling fascinating,but I frequently have been known for being out of the mainstream.During the summer following my second ISU year my traineeship paid forme to take courses in biostatistics and epidemiology at the School of PublicHealth at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, since ISU did not offerthese courses. I began to understand the scope of biostatistics. The applicationof statistical theory and methods to public health and medicine appealed tome, combining my then current interests in statistics and psychology with myearlier interest in medicine.Now that I had taken all of the required coursework for a statistics doctoraldegree, fulfilling my limited objective of learning more about statisticsto become more employable, I decided to take the scheduled doctoral exams.If I did well, I would continue on to finish the work for a PhD, i.e., write a dissertation.To my surprise, I received the George Snedecor Award for the mostoutstanding PhD candidate that year, based on doctoral exam performance,and shared the award with another student because we were tied.7.8 Dissertation research and family issuesCompleting my dissertation took longer than anticipated due to academic andfamily issues. I began my dissertation research a few months after my doctoralexams and the birth of my son Jeffrey. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed withstomach cancer shortly thereafter and had a limited life expectancy. After oneyear’s work on a dissertation topic that had been chosen for me, I discardedmy limited research results, feeling that I was not a good match for the topic orfor the dissertation advisor. I took a six-month leave of absence from graduateschool to spend more time with my two children.Upon returning to school I requested, and was granted, permission by thedepartment to change my dissertation advisor and topic, an unusual occurrence.I felt this strategy was the only way I would ever finish my degree.I began working with Dr. Joseph Sedransk on a sampling problem of interestto me and, with his expert guidance and assistance, completed my dissertationin a little over one year in summer of 1967. My son died during the middle ofthis dissertation work, a few days before his second birthday.This clearly was a difficult time period for me and my family, and I appreciatevery much the support given to me by the ISU Department of Statistics.