One by one, Sailors of all ranks begin filing in to the classroom. Blank notebooks, pens and freshly sharpened pencils are sprawled across the wooden desks; an unexpected scene for a combat deployment.

Just as everyone gets settled in, Jay Emerson strides forward, directing attention to the middle of the classroom. He is the director of graduate studies in the department of statistics and data science at Yale University, and he's teaching a workshop on the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77).

Using open discussions and hands-on practical exercises, the "Life in the Sea of Statistics and Data Science" workshop hopes to address real-life scenarios and give Sailors the opportunity to learn something new.

"Anything that someone can do to better understand anything that's
quantitative is useful," explained Emerson. "These are topics that I think everyone understands, but doesn't stop to think about formally."

Emerson believes a better understanding of randomness and uncertainty addresses important, real-life questions that may even be related to the work that Sailors do aboard the ship.

"Your comfort level with margin of error has a lot to do with the consequences," said Emerson. "If your job has the potential to put someone's life at risk, you would like the margin of error to be so ridiculous that the chance of a problem becomes zero, or close to zero."

Although Emerson has visited other ships, this is his first time aboard an aircraft carrier.

"It's overwhelming in a way just because everything is so new," said Emerson. "I'm not used to walking down a passageway and coming out into the hangar [bay] with a bunch of F/A-18s and helicopters and just simply being allowed to walk around as I am. It's amazing."

Today Emerson teaches at all levels around the world, including the Census Bureau, Federal Trade Commission, Government Accountability Office, and at West Point, where he helped other instructors develop new aspects to their curriculum.

"It's so rewarding to be able to work with people to help them through something that might be difficult at first," said Emerson. "Seeing the sense of achievement when things fall into place at the end of the day or at the end of the class is something I absolutely wouldn't give up."

Emerson hopes to accomplish different goals depending on the individual students attending his workshop.

"For students that have studied statistics before, I tend to find that one course, or even two, isn't really enough," remarked Emerson. "A lot of these topics take some time to sink in and are better understood from different perspectives, so maybe I'm offering a different perspective on some of the same topics that will give students a better understanding of the material."

Emerson wants the workshop to be just as valuable to those who have never studied statistics, commenting that the course is designed to simply broaden horizons and introduce students to the topics discussed.

"I just hope they have a good time," said Emerson. "I know there are a lot of students that just maybe didn't have a great experience in a lot of their classes, and it might not have been their fault. It might have been the fault of the teacher who just wasn't as excited about their job. I just hope that they realize that school might actually be okay after all, and that they would be willing to consider it now or in the future. That would be a success for me."

For more information, visit https://www.navy.mil, http://www.facebook.com/usnavy, or http://www.twitter.com/usnavy.

For more news from USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), visit www.navy.mil/.