r/statistics • u/GayTwink-69 • 10d ago

Career Mathematical Statistics VS Computational Statistics/Machine Learning for an academic careeer [C] [R}

Is it still worth pursuing an academic career in mathematical statistics these days?
Or is it shooting yourself in the foot with all the focus on computational statistics and machine learning?

I.e., will you have a harder time landing postdocs/tenure track positions and getting grants as a more mathematical statistician vs a computational statistician/machine learning scientist?

I love mathematical statistics and proving everything rigorously using mathematics, but I also don't want to be shooting myself in the foot by choosing a dead/dying path.

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u/latent_threader 9d ago

Math stats definitely isn’t dead, but the strongest theory people now usually connect their work to modern ML or computational problems. Purely abstract work is a narrower lane than before, though.

If you genuinely love rigorous theory, I’d still lean into it. Being good at something difficult and specialized tends to matter more long term than chasing whatever topic is hottest right now.