Harvard Statistics Consulting Service

The Department of Statistics offers free, appointment only statistical consulting to members of the Harvard community. This service supports statistical questions arising in research across a wide range of disciplines.

Under the supervision of a faculty member, Statistics Ph.D. students provide guidance on issues related to data analysis and interpretation of results, including (but not limited to):

  • Causal Inference
  • Experimental Design
  • Classification and Prediction (Machine Learning)
  • Statistical Challenges Arising from Large ('Big Data') Datasets
  • Time Series Analysis
  • Model Fitting and Validation
  • Data Visualization

Researchers are encouraged to seek consultation early in their projects, though consultations are welcome at any stage. Please come prepared with relevant data, prior analyses, and any other materials that will help facilitate discussion.

This service is intended to address statistical questions, such as formulating scientific questions as statistical hypotheses, selecting appropriate statistical methodologies, or identifying efficient computational approaches for implementing those methods. We do not provide assistance with purely programming-related issues (for example, debugging code errors or learning how to execute a chosen method in a specific software package such as Stata, SAS, or R).

Schedule and Location

To schedule a consultation, please click here and use your Harvard-affiliated email address. The form can be submitted between Saturday 8 am and Monday 11:59 pm. Please note that submitting the form does not guarantee an appointment; confirmation emails are sent by Tuesday at noon each week.

While online consultations are available, in-person sessions are prioritized. Online appointments will be confirmed only if there are no in-person requests for the selected time slots.

Consulting sessions are not held during the summer, reading periods, finals weeks, or university holidays. Please refer to the Harvard FAS Academic Calendar for exact dates. The final consulting sessions for the Spring 2026 semester will take place during the week of April 20, 2026.

For questions, Please contact the course teaching fellow, Anvit Garg, at anvitgarg@fas.harvard.edu.