Ann Cannon is the Watson M. Davis Professor of Statistics at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, where she has been on the faculty for 30 years. She has been involved in the Section on Statistics and Data Science Education for many years, having served in the past as at-large member, secretary/treasurer, and council of sections rep, and is currently the chair of the section. She has also been involved with AP Statistics for many years, serving as Reader, Table Leader, Question Leader, and, for the past 9 years, Assistant Chief Reader.
Why did you decide to go into Statistics/Statistics Education?
I chose Statistics because I love to learn. My first, and only, exposure to statistics in college was through the one-year sequence of probability and mathematical statistics. My professor chose a text (Larson and Marx) that used many real data sets and I found myself heading to the library to look up the articles that had been cited. I was curious about the whole process - what was the question, how was the data collected and analyzed, and what was the outcome? Ultimately I ended up in Statistics Education because I knew that I belonged in a liberal arts college (it was in my blood - Dad was also a liberal arts professor). Being a great teacher was always my priority. So Stat Ed drew me in.
What statistics class(es) are you currently teaching? What statistics classes do you enjoy teaching the most?
Our college just approved both a Statistics major and a Data Science major, so we have just added several new statistics courses. I have taught intro stat, stat 2 (modeling), intro to data science, and intro to epidemiology for years. But I have recently added advanced regression, biostatistics, and statistical learning. I think my favorite courses are stat 2 (because this is the first course where the class is made up of students who truly want to be there and they are getting their first look at what real statisticians do), and biostatistics (because many of the students in that class have a real interest in the health sciences and can see the relevance from the very beginning).
What do you enjoy doing when you’re not working?
When I'm not working, I enjoy walking in nature. I also play the French Horn and enjoy playing with the college orchestra and in various pit orchestras in the area for musical theater productions.
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