Stats + Stories

From Florence Nightingale to David Cox we hear at Stats and Stories love tales of the careers of statisticians who made an impact on the world. Yes, friends in nursing, we claim Florence as part of statistics too. While those two pioneers are no longer with us, Jana Asher is here with us today in this episode of Stats and Short Stories. Jana Asher is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Slippery Rock University. She is also a Service-Learning Associate of the Office for Community-Engaged Learning at SRU, as well as outside of work, she is a member of the board of directors for the Pittsburgh Interfaith Evolutions Corporation (PIE), a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading interfaith understanding. Her research interests include questionnaire design, survey methods, record linkage, history of statistics, community-engaged education, and statistics education as well as her work with human rights and sexual violence. Within the ASA, she is currently a member of the Committee on International Relations and the Program Chair for the Section on Survey Research Methods.

Dr. Dennis Pearl is a Professor of Statistics at Pennsylvania State University and Director of the Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE). Dr. Pearl's education work centers on building a national infrastructure to support instructors of statistics, developing resources for instructors in both statistics and probability education, and developing and testing new pedagogical methods. One of the regular conversations we have at Stats and Stories is how to improve stats education, both for people who want to be statisticians, as well as for people who need to be able to understand data for their jobs or just to be able to go about their daily lives. The Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education has been working on this issue for the last 20 years. Its work is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Dennis Pearl

Gambling is often tricky topic. It got Pete Rose kicked out of baseball, and more recently, made news when Michigan State University announced a betting partnership with Ceasers entertainment. As with everything new media and big data have only complicated the conversations around games of skill vs. games of chance. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Dr. Mike Orkin. Dr. Mike Orkin is a Professor of Statistics Emeritus at California State University, where he was a professor and chair of the statistics department for many years before becoming a consultant and a nationally known authority on probability and gambling games. Since then he has appeared in numerous forms of media ranging from CBS Evening News, NBC’s Dateline, a Google Tech Talk series as well as authored serval books.

The Gilded Age in the U.S. is perhaps best known for the great men who rose to prominence at the time. Men such as John D. Rockefeller and JP Morgan, who made money hand over fist. One of those men Andrew Carnegie was not only a shrewd businessman, he was also a shrewd statistician of sorts. His legacy is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Christopher Tong. How you got interested in Andrew Carnegie as a statistician? (1:33), Carnegie’s background (3:44), How much influence did his work have? (8:58), The Census (10:11), the ASA today (15:48), How does his work inform today? (20:02), Statistics in business today (21:38) Christopher Tong has been a nonclinical and clinical biostatistician for 20 years, both in the pharmaceutical industry and in government. He has a master's degree in applied statistics, and a Ph.D. in physics, from Purdue University. He has co-authored work published in journals in fields such as fluid dynamics, atmospheric science, physiological acoustics, chemometrics, medical imaging, microbiology, and human and veterinary medicine.

On a recent episode of Stats+Stories, Timandra Harkness talked with us about the rise of today’s data economy. On today’s episode of Stats and Short Stories we want to shift the focus to the future of that data economy and how advancing technologies like the metaverse will play in. Harkness writes and presents BBC Radio 4 documentaries including the series FutureProofing and How To Disagree, and Are You A Numbers Person? for BBC World Service. She formed the UK’s first comedy science double-act with neuroscientist Dr. Helen Pilcher and has performed scientific and mathematical comedy from Adelaide (Australia) to Pittsburgh PA with partners including Stand Up Mathematician Matt Parker and Socrates the rat.

An entire industry has grown up around nutrition and health. People pushing everything from shakes, to meal kits, to special diets. While some of the claims surrounding such products can be questionable at best, the field of nutrition science is growing. Filled with researchers who are working to truly understand the science of food that is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Michelle Cardel. What is Nutrition science? (1:45), What is the difference between a nutritionist and a registered dietitian? (2:10), How did you become interested in this study, to begin with? (7:02), Misguided influencer advice to stay away from. (10:15), Wading through all the noise about obesity out there. (13:58), Obesity intervention (16:10), Nutrition science quantitative studies (19:20), Motivational interviewing (23:03) Dr. Michelle Cardel is an obesity and nutrition scientist, registered dietitian, the Director of Global Clinical Research & Nutrition at WW International, Inc. (formerly Weight Watchers) and a faculty member at the University of Florida (UF) College of Medicine, where she is also an Associate Director for the Center for Integrative Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases. Her research is focused on three areas, assessing the effects of psychosocial factors, including low social status and food insecurity, on eating behavior and obesity-related disease, the development and implementation of effective healthy lifestyle interventions with a focus on underserved populations, and improving gender equity within academia.

Do you remember the first time you saw a prompt in social media asking about a product you were searching for on some other online platform? How about the first time you received coupons sent from your local grocery that incentivized buying your favorite consumable items? Today’s episode of Stats+Stories focuses on the origin, expansion and future of the data economy with guest Timandra Harkness and guest host Brian Tarran. Harkness writes and presents BBC Radio 4 documentaries including the series FutureProofing and How To Disagree, and Are You A Numbers Person? for BBC World Service. She formed the UK’s first comedy science double-act with neuroscientist Dr. Helen Pilcher, and has performed scientific and mathematical comedy from Adelaide (Australia) to Pittsburgh PA with partners including Stand Up Mathematician Matt Parker and Socrates the rat.

Our lives are increasingly shaped by statistics and data. However, they remain concepts that can be difficult for broad audiences to understand. A number of outlets, including this one, have sprung up to help make them more accessible. Today another one, the “Not So Standard Deviations” podcast is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guests Hilary Parker and Roger D. Peng. Hilary Parker (@hspter) is a Data Scientist, previously of Stitch Fix, Etsy, and the 2020 Biden for President Campaign. Her work focuses on the intersection of data science and product, from deeply understanding users to designing new experiences that depend on innovative data pipelines and client interactions. Roger D. Peng (@rdpeng) is a Professor of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Co-Director of the Johns Hopkins Data Science Lab. His research focuses on the development of statistical methods for addressing environmental health problems and he has made major contributions to our understanding of the health effects of indoor and outdoor air pollution.

When we talk about human rights we often focus on qualitative narratives; the tales of struggles faced by refugees, of rights denied to individuals during war, of the fight for clean food and water, but undergirding all those stories are statistics. Statistics that allow us to gain insight into the scope of a human rights issue, or the size of a population living through particular human rights abuses. The collection of those statistics is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Jana Asher. Jana Asher is an Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Slippery Rock University. She is also a Service-Learning Associate of the Office for Community-Engaged Learning at SRU, as well as outside of work, she is a member of the board of directors for the Pittsburgh Interfaith Evolutions Corporation (PIE), a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading interfaith understanding. Her research interests include questionnaire design, survey methods, record linkage, history of statistics, community-engaged education, and statistics education as well as her work with human rights and sexual violence. Within the ASA, she is currently a member of the Committee on International Relations and the Program Chair for the Section on Survey Research Methods.

There's so much data out there about COVID-19 it can be hard to make sense of it all. Over the last year, a couple of statisticians have been working to help the readers of the Guardian, get a handle on the numbers. Dr. Anthony Masters and Sir David John Spiegelhalter have a new book out based on their weekly blog titled COVID by the Numbers, which is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories. Dr. Anthony Masters (@anthonybmasters) is a Chartered Statistician, a Statistical Ambassador for the Royal Statistical Society, and a frequent blogger and explainer of statistical ideas. In his voluntary role as a Statistical Ambassador, Dr. Masters has contributed to BBC and Full Fact articles, among others, and he writes about statistics, survey research, and coding in R on Medium. Sir David Spiegelhalter (@d_spiegel) is the Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication and has dedicated his work to improving the way that quantitative evidence is used in society. He is the former President of the Royal Statistical Society as well as a three-time former guest on Stats and Stories.