Stats + Stories

Data science is becoming an ever more visible and important part of our lives with universities around the US, working to create or strengthen data science programs. At the same time there's a growing recognition of the need for data science outreach, particularly in order to reach underrepresented populations. Data science outreach is the focus of this episode of stats and stories with guest James Dickens. James Dickens is a Professorial Lecturer of Mathematics and Statistics at American University (Washington DC) since 2014; specializing now in Data Science. Specifically, teaching graduate courses in the Data Science program. Research topics of interest focus on the usage and the applications of the R programming language and the infusion of Python as learning aid in standard classes of mathematics.

Last week the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a pause on the distribution and use of Johnson and Johnson’s COVID vaccine. The pause amid reports that 6 women who had received the vaccine had developed rare blood clots. The concern this has brought up around J&J’s vaccine mirrors earlier concerns raised in relation to the vaccine produced by AstraZeneca. Vaccine safety is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Dr. Susan Ellenberg. Dr. Ellenberg is a Professor of Biostatistics, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Her research interests have focused on issues in the design and analysis of clinical trials, and on assessment of medical product safety. She is an associate editor of Clinical Trials as well as of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Privacy is becoming an ever more potent concern as we grapple with the reality that our phones, computers, and our browser histories are filled with data that could reveal a lot about who we are sometimes things we’d rather keep private. The issue of the privacy of data is not a new concern for researchers in fact, whenever someone wants to work with people, oversight boards ask them about how they’ll keep data about participants private. But the data landscape for researchers and statisticians is changing and that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guests Claire McKay Bowen and Joshua Snoke. Claire McKay Bowen is the Lead Data Scientist of Privacy and Data Security at the Urban Institute. Her research focuses on comparing and evaluating the quality of differentially private data synthesis methods and science communication. After completing her Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of Notre Dame, she worked at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where she investigated cosmic ray effects on supercomputers. She is also the recipient of the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, Microsoft Graduate Women’s Fellowship, and Gertrude M. Cox Scholarship. Joshua Snoke is an Associate Statistician at the RAND Corporation in Pittsburgh. His research focuses on applied statistical data privacy methods for increasing researchers’ access to data restricted due to privacy concerns. He has published on various statistical data privacy topics, such as differential privacy, synthetic data, and privacy preserving distributed estimation. He serves on the Privacy and Confidentiality Committee for the American Statistical Association and the RAND Human Subjects and Protections Committee. He received his Ph.D. in Statistics from the Pennsylvania State University.

The best thing about being a statistician,” he said, “is that you get to play in everyone's backyard.” That famous quote by John Tukey is optimized by our guest and the focus of this episode of Stats and Short Stories with guest Walter Piegorsch. Walter W. Piegorsch is the Director of Statistical Research & Education at the University of Arizona’s BIO5 Institute. He is also a Professor of Mathematics, a Professor of Public Health, a Member and former Chair of the University’s Graduate Interdisciplinary Program (GIDP) in Statistics. Dr. Piegorsch’s research focuses on data science and informatics for environmental hazards and risk assessment.

When planning for potential disasters, we often focus on hurricanes that might ravage coastal areas or tornados and droughts that strike rural parts of the Midwest. But researchers are also working to uncover the vulnerabilities faced by urban areas and that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Walter Piegorsch. Walter W. Piegorsch is the Director of Statistical Research & Education at the University of Arizona’s BIO5 Institute. He is also a Professor of Mathematics, a Professor of Public Health, a Member and former Chair of the University’s Graduate Interdisciplinary Program (GIDP) in Statistics. Dr. Piegorsch’s research focuses on data science and informatics for environmental hazards and risk assessment.

After over a year of being stuck in our houses. A lot of us are appreciating the outdoors on our planet a little bit more healthy environment and more our focus on this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Leslie McClure. McClure is Professor & Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University. Dr. McClure does work to try to understand disparities in health, particularly racial and geographic disparities, and the role that the environment plays in them. Her methodological expertise is in the design and analysis of multicenter trials, as well as issues of multiplicity in clinical trials. She is currently the Director of the Coordinating Center for the Diabetes LEAD Network, and the Director of the Data Coordinating Center for the Connecting the Dots: Autism Center of Excellence.

Individuals and institutions around the United States are grappling with the history of racism in the country as well as the ways they themselves have contributed to it. Many are working to adopt anti-racist approaches to their work and in their everyday lives. How to be an anti-racist data scientist is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Emily Hadley. Emily Hadley is a Research Data Scientist with the RTI International Center for Data Science. Her work spans several practice areas including health, education, social policy, and criminal justice. Emily holds a Bachelor of Science in Statistics with a second major in Public Policy Studies from Duke University and a Master of Science in Analytics from North Carolina State University.

As COVID has ravaged the globe, it's overshadowed another ongoing global story of migration, according to new data from the International Organization for Migration migrants make up 3.5%. of the total global population with the top five countries of origin being India and Mexico China, Russia and Syria that information and more can be found in the IOM 2020 world migration report, that's the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Marie McAuliffe. Dr. Marie McAuliffe is the head of the Migration Research Division at IOM headquarters in Geneva and Editor of IOM’s flagship World Migration Report. She is an international migration specialist with more than 20 years of experience in migration as a practitioner, program manager, senior official and researcher.Marie has researched, published and edited widely in academic and policy spheres on migration and is on the editorial boards of scientific journals International Migration and Migration Studies, and is an Associate Editor of the Harvard Data Science Review. She was the 2018 recipient of the Charles Price Prize in demography for outstanding doctoral research in migration studies. Her Research interests include Forced migration Migrant decision-making Migrant smuggling Media representations of migration Enhancing public confidence in migration Public policy research partnerships The views expressed in this podcast are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of the IOM or its member states.

Everyone has a podcast nowadays. Whether it's about sports, politics or features some of the most fascinating discussions on the current state of statistical communication in the world. No matter the topic, it seems like someone, somewhere is talking into a microphone about it. Getting someone to act on your podcast however - that's a lot more rare. Today we're here to discuss podcasting with our guest Tim Harford. Harford is an economist, journalist and broadcaster. He is author of "How To Make the World Add Up", "Messy", and the million-selling "The Undercover Economist". Tim is a senior columnist at the Financial Times, and the presenter of Radio 4's "More or Less", the iTunes-topping series "Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy", and the new podcast "Cautionary Tales". Tim has spoken at TED, PopTech and the Sydney Opera House. He is an associate member of Nuffield College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. Tim was made an OBE for services to improving economic understanding in the New Year honors of 2019. His newest book “The Data Detective” was released in the U.S. and Canada earlier this month. Check out the episode here. - https://timharford.com/2021/03/cautionary-tales-florence-nightingale-and-her-geeks-declare-war-on-death/

Much of the United States is buried under snow and ice, leaving many dreaming of spring. For some – that dream of spring brings with it a longing to hear the crack of a ball on a bat or the taste of peanuts in a ballpark. With the spring thaw comes baseball season and, with it, the inevitable number crunching associated with the sport. Data and baseball is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Christopher J. Phillips. Phillips is a historian of science at Carnegie Mellon University. His research is  on the history of statistics and mathematics, particularly the claimed benefits of introducing mathematical tools and models into new fields. He is the author of "Scouting and Scoring: How We Know What We Know about Baseball" and "The New Math: A Political History," and his work has been featured in the New York Times, Time.com, New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and Nature.  He received his Ph.D. in History of Science from Harvard University.