Stats + Stories

The international prize in statistics is awarded every two years by a collaboration among five leading international statistics organizations: the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the International Biometric Society, the International Statistical Institute, and the Royal Statistical Society. The prize recognizes a major achievement by an individual or team in the statistics field, particularly an achievement of powerful and original ideas that have led to practical applications and breakthroughs in other disciplines. The International Prize in Statistics for 2025 was announced recently, and the winner is Grace Wahba. This episode of Stats+Stories is all about celebrating her career with her former students, Finbarr O'Sullivan and Douglas Nychka. Finbarr O’Sullivan is a Senior Post-Doctoral researcher and Associate Director in the National Institute for Cellular Biotechnology at Dublin City University. He has research interests in corneal biology and in limbal stem cell culture techniques for corneal epithelial replacement. In conjunction with collaborators in The Royal Victoria Eye & Ear Hospital, Dublin and the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS) he has developed the technique of using such cultures to treat corneal-limbal epithelial stem deficiency. This technique received regulatory approval in January 2016 and was used on June 2016 in the clinic for the first time. Douglas Nychka is a statistician who works in applications for the environment. Douglas Nychka is a statistician and data scientist whose areas of research include the theory, computation and application of curve and surface fitting with a focus on geophysical and environmental applications. Currently he is a Professor in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics at the Colorado School of Mines and Senior Scientist Emeritus at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, Colorado. Before moving to Mines he directed the Institute for Mathematics Applied to Geosciences at NCAR. His current focus in research is the computation of spatial statistics methods for large data sets and the migration of these algorithms into easy to use R packages. He has coauthored more than 100 research articles and with an h-index of 50. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, Fellow of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics and a recipient of the Jerry Sacks Award for interdisciplinary research.

Matthew Shearing is a private sector consultant working globally in partnership with the public, private and not-for-profit sectors on improving official statistics and other data systems, Monitoring and Evaluation, and embedding official statistics standards in wider international development. David Stern is a Mathematical Scientist and Educator. He is a former lecturer in the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Sciences at Maseno University in Kenya and a founding board member of African Maths Initiative (AMI).

Have you ever wondered if what you eat is aging you, or whether women in red really are sexier? In addition to turning to Reddit for the answers to those questions, you can now tune into a new podcast. Normal Curves focuses on sexy science and serious statistics, and it's the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guests Regina Nuzzo and Kristin Sainani Regina Nuzzo is an award-winning science journalist and Gallaudet University professor who talks with audiences around the world about communicating stats creatively. She's written for such outlets as Nature, the New York Times, Scientific American, New Scientist and ESPN, the magazine. She's also served as a guest panelist on Stats and Stories in 2022. Kristin Sainani is a Stanford professor and science journalist. She teaches the popular Coursera course on writing in the sciences, available in 22 languages, and offers an online medical statistics certificate program through Stanford Online. She also wrote a beauty column for Allure.

A statistician walks into a bar, and a comedy and art show begins. Creative work for scholars can extend beyond novel research and application. In today's episode of stats and stories, we see how the intersection between interest in statistics and art, as well as the intersection of statistics and comedy, with Dr Greg Matthews. Dr. Matthews is Associate Professor of Statistics and Director of the Center for Data Science and Consulting at Loyola University. He also is a data artist who developed and promoted the Data Art Show, which debuted at the 2016 Joint Statistical Meetings. He performs with the Uncontrolled Variables comedy troupe at the Lincoln Lodge in Chicago and you can see his data art, links to his comedy performance, and much more at his website, Stats in the Wild.

Brian Tarrant, Editor of Significance Magazine, chats about the art of communicating statistics effectively. He shares invaluable storytelling techniques to engage diverse audiences and emphasizes the importance of clarity in presenting complex concepts. The dialogue explores the evolving role of statisticians in public health, especially in partnership with advocacy groups during pivotal moments like the AIDS crisis. Tarrant also highlights insights from recent statistical conferences and the joy of networking and collaboration within the stats community.

Have you ever wondered if people actually hate Coldplay? Do you want statistical proof that Game of Thrones did not stick the landing in its finale? Have you wondered whether you’re actually seeing Nicholas Cage in more movies? Well, you’re in luck there’s a newsletter for that, and it’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Daniel Parris Daniel Parris is a data scientist and journalist who writes about the intersection of statistics and pop culture. He previously worked in the entertainment industry and at DoorDash when the company only had around 150 employees. Parris is also the author of the newsletter Stat Significant that explores popular culture through stats.

What is a median? How about an interquartile range? Don’t even get me started on how to define a p-value. These statistical concepts are hard to grasp for your average statistics student, but imagining how these types of definitions translate into American Sign Language is a whole other ballgame. That is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with special guest Dr. Regina Nuzzo. Dr. Regina Nuzzo is a freelance science writer and professor in Washington, DC. After studying engineering as an undergraduate she earned her PhD in Statistics from Stanford University. Currently, she’s teaching statistics in American Sign Language at Gallaudet University, the world’s only liberal arts college for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Dr. Nuzzo is also a graduate of the Science Communication program at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Her science journalism specialties center around data, probability, statistics, and the research process. Her work has appeared in Nature, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Reader’s Digest, New Scientist, and Scientific American, among others.

The National Association of science writers has about 2000 members, even as the field of science journalism has been experiencing a contraction. In her 2025 Nieman lab prediction for journalism, Siri Carpenter suggested that, given the challenges the world faces, it might be time that newsrooms embrace "science as a thread that runs through every beat." Science journalism is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, with guests Jeff Mervis and Andrew van Dam. Jeff Mervis reports on science policy in the United States and worldwide to explain to scientists how government works. He keeps a close eye on the changing fortunes of science across the federal government. He also follows efforts to improve science and math education and the factors that shape the U.S. and global scientific workforce. Andrew Van Dam writes the Department of Data column each week for The Washington Post. He has covered economics and wrangled data and graphics for The Post and the Wall Street Journal. He got his start at the Idaho Press-Tribune.

The health of the world's oceans is a growing concern but measuring ocean health is a complicated undertaking. Some people studying the issue focus on pollution, while others look at the health of corals or marine mammals. One project attempts to take a comprehensive picture of the health of oceans in order to provide information about Oceanic vital signs to stakeholders. The Ocean Health Index is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guests Lelys Bravo and Julia Stewart Lowndes. Lelys Bravo is a Statistics Professor at the Department of Statistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Before that she was a member of the Science Steering Committee of the Biospherical Aspects of the Hydrological Cycle project from the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP) and Lead author of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment report. Her research interests include spatial and temporal analysis of environmental data, including the development of risk assessment methods to evaluate the impacts of natural hazards under potential climate change. Julia Stewart Lowndes (@juliesquid) is a marine ecologist, data scientist, and Senior Fellow at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California Santa Barbara. She champions kinder, better science in less time through open data science and teamwork. As a marine data scientist, Mozilla Fellow, and Senior Fellow at NCEAS, she has 7+ years designing and leading programs to empower science teams with skillsets and mindsets for reproducible research, empowering researchers with existing open tools and communities. She has been building communities of practice in this space since 2013 with the Ocean Health Index.

The Amazon has been imagined as a pristine wilderness, one in need of protection from development. This framing has often treated the Amazon as a place without history, practically untouched before the arrival of colonizers in South America. Statistics is helping show the history is much more complicated than that and it’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Dani Gamerman. Gamerman is Emeritus Professor at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where he was professor of statistics from 1996 to 2019. He is the author of numerous books and research papers, and the StatPop blog. He was one of two statisticians who worked on a Science paper showing evidence of manmade earthworks deep in heart of Amazonia and is also the author of a Significance article examining the use of statistics to map this hidden history of the Amazon.