Jana's path to statistics was not a direct one. She first earned a bachelor's in anthropology and Japanese studies from Wellesley College, then later went back to school to get a master's in statistics from Carnegie Mellon University. She is now finishing her Ph.D. work at Carnegie Mellon.

Jana spoke to Under the Microscope about the emotional challenges of working with human-rights data and her less-than-direct career path.

Under the Microscope: What sorts of projects do you work on?

Jana Asher: After a period of war or civil unrest in a country, it's been a widely used technique ... to create a truth commission, a body of people that document the history of the conflict. Many of these truth and reconciliation commissions have relied on statisticians to help them sort through massive amounts of data they end up collecting. I've done projects related to the Kosovo Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ... the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the East Timor Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and so on.

More recently I've been interested in economic rights – such as the right to health, education, and food and water. For example I've worked with [Dr.] Lynn Lawry, who did a study in Liberia on experiences in the war and mental health outcomes.

UTM: How did you get involved in this type of work?

JA: I actually had a school project. I had some data from country X – and I have to call it country X because we were never allowed to release the name of the country – that needed analyzing. It was human rights violations data. And I was doing that work for a man named Patrick Ball who at the time was working for the Science and Human Rights Program at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Because of that project I ended up doing several more projects with him, and then the rest of my work has been through word of mouth, really.

UTM: Statisticians are several steps removed from the people who are suffering. Do you feel a connection to the people you are helping?

JA: It can get pretty traumatic, actually, even just to work with the data. In fact, there have been cases of researchers – interviewers, for instance – who develop post-traumatic stress disorder from collecting the stories related to some human rights abuses that have occurred. So, yeah, in the end I end up creating numbers, and numbers may seem safe and seem like they don't relate directly to the trauma, but I'm keenly aware of the actual stories behind the numbers, and so it is an emotional thing for me.

[For example,] I ran a national survey on human rights abuses in Sierra Leone, and I was traveling to the sites and meeting with people. Interacting with the population and understanding their suffering very directly was hard. The simplest abuses had to do with having property looted or stolen, or being forcibly displaced. But there were some pretty horrific stories. …You really don't want to know the details unless you have to. Which is why it can be traumatic to work with the data because you know what it really means in terms of human cost.

UTM: You didn't start out in math or statistics. How did you end up there?

JA: I was a double-major in anthropology and Japanese studies when I graduated in 1991 in the middle of a recession, which is an experience I think current graduates can empathize with. I ended up getting married, actually, and working at a variety of jobs and having a child. And then when I was about 26, my husband got sick and it looked like I had to find a career quickly, and knowing the problems I had with a liberal arts degree earlier, I decided I better get some technical training. I had been good at math in high school but had not taken a single math class in college. I thought for some reason actuarial science would be a good place to go. I had known actuaries, and it's considered a pretty lucrative and relatively stress-free job.

And so I enrolled [at Carnegie-Mellon], and I started taking classes and it turned out I was pretty good in math after all, and I was doing pretty well. But in the meantime, …my husband … got significantly better. Once he was significantly better, he wasn't so thrilled with me being in school, ... and we ended up going our separate ways.

A member of the statistics department …pointed out that I could apply for a master's in statistics and they would support my schooling [financially]. So I applied to the department of statistics at Carnegie Mellon and was accepted, so I ended up as a master's degree student there.

I completed my master's in statistics and went off to work. I was working for the Census Bureau and thinking the people with Ph.D.s were able to do the things that were the most fun in terms of research. So I went back to Carnegie Mellon University [for a Ph.D.].

Doing all that liberal-arts training [in college] was really good later on when I got to data analysis because I wasn't just concentrated on the numbers, I was concentrated on the concepts. I had studied many different things and had a lot of background knowledge to use to try to figure out why the data were the way they were. And the people who came from a straight math background had more difficulty with that.

UTM: You're starting your own nonprofit instead of following more traditional paths. Why?

JA: In my particular situation, I think it makes sense because I have 10 years of experience now working with the human rights community.

The next year will be very telling because we're just beginning the process of applying to foundations, and it will take six to eight months for us to know whether we're going to get that seed funding that allows us to continue.

UTM: Do you have any advice you'd like to pass on, especially to young women?

JA: I have run into situations …where being an assertive female has caused male colleagues to be uncomfortable or to turn away or to be, frankly, rather rude and almost abusive. You kinda have to let those go and keep doing the work you think is important to do because there are plenty of colleagues that won't treat you that way.

I'd say for every one bad experience I've had with a male colleagues, there have been 90 good ones. …Your best bet is to document what you do well and work with people who appreciate you for being a scientist.

Photo courtesy of Michael Kisielewski.

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