Anna Bruce Nevius is a retired American biostatistician who worked for many years in the Center for Veterinary Medicine of the US

Food and Drug Administration The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA or US FDA) is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Health and Human Services. The FDA is respo ...

, and chaired the Biopharmaceutical Section of the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuous ...

Early life and education

Nevius is originally from North Carolina, and graduated from high school in 1961 in

Murphy, North Carolina Murphy is a town in and the county seat of Cherokee County, North Carolina, United States. It is situated at the confluence of the Hiwassee River, Hiwassee and Valley River, Valley rivers. It is the westernmost county seat in the state of North ...

. As a mathematics major at Carson–Newman College in Tennessee, she discovered her interest in statistics by taking a course in the subject in her senior year. She began a doctoral program in statistics at

Kansas State University Kansas State University (KSU, Kansas State, or K-State) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university with its main campus in Manhattan, Kansas, United States. It was opened as the state's land-grant coll ...

, but after marrying fellow statistics student S. Edward Nevius in 1968, she left with a master's degree to follow her husband to Alaska, where he was posted from 1968 to 1970 by the

United States Public Health Service The United States Public Health Service (USPHS or PHS) is a collection of agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services which manages public health, containing nine out of the department's twelve operating divisions. The assistant s ...

. In the early 1970s, she and her husband moved to Florida, where he earned a doctorate in statistics from

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU or Florida State) is a Public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preeminent university in the s ...

. From 1975 to 1978 she worked as an instructor and statistical consultant in mathematics and statistics at the

University of Nebraska A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

, where her husband had a tenure-track faculty position. After her husband moved to the Food and Drug Administration in 1979, she returned to graduate study at the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...

, and completed a Ph.D. in applied statistics in 1984. Her dissertation, ''Techniques for Combining

2\times 2

Contingency Tables: A Simulation Study'', was supervised by C. Mitchell Dayton.

Career and later life

Nevius entered government service working for the

Internal Revenue Service The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is the revenue service for the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, which is responsible for collecting Taxation in the United States, U.S. federal taxes and administerin ...

, but soon shifted to the Center for Veterinary Medicine, where she remained for the rest of her career. She chaired the Biopharmaceutical Section of the American Statistical Association for 2009. She retired three times and was rehired twice; after her second retirement, in 2022, and her husband's death at the end of 2022, she returned to the center again in 2023 as a rehired annuitant.

Recognition

Nevius was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The designation of ASA Fellow has been a sign ...

in 2012.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nevius, Anna Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American women statisticians American biostatisticians Carson–Newman University alumni Kansas State University alumni University of Maryland, College Park alumni Fellows of the American Statistical Association