Stats + Stories

Luke Bornn (@LukeBornn) is currently Vice President, Strategy and Analytics for the Sacramento Kings . Prior to joining the Kings, Bornn served as Head of Analytics for A.S. Roma of the Italian Serie A Football League, where he worked closely with managers, coaches and sports scientists to measure and evaluate athletes and performance. In addition to his work with soccer and basketball teams, the British Columbia native has previously held tenure-track professorships in Statistics at both Harvard University and Fraser University. Bornn is a frequent contributor to the field of sports analytics, authoring research articles for the Journal for Quantitative Analysis, the Annals of Applied Statistics and the Journal of the American Statistical Association amongst others.

Latoya Jennings-Lopez hosts this special episode of Stats+Stories with the children of Howard W. Bishop middle school. Listen to Alyana and Collin ask our host John Bailer and other special guest Wendy Martinez about their careers in Statistics, and how young people can get involved early.

Lynn McDonald is a professor emerita at the University of Guelph. McDonald’s career has focused on enduring contributions as a scholar and social activist. She also served as a member of Parliament when her Non-Smokers’ Health Act of 1988 led the world in enacting legislation to establish smoke-free work and public spaces. In addition, in a labor of love, she published the definitive collection of Florence Nightingale’s writings, bringing renewed attention to this important female icon for a new generation.

Steve Pierson is director of science policy for the American Statistical Association where he works to raise the profile of statistics in policymaking and advocates on the interests of statisticians. He was previously head of government relations at the American Physical Society and associate professor of physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Amalia Bastos is a biologist and photographer who is currently a Ph.D candidate at The University of Auckland. She is part of the Animal Minds lab and work with three different species: dogs, kea, and New Caledonian crows. Her main interest is on how evolutionary pressures have shaped the minds of different species. Her PhD thesis focuses on the signature-testing approach, which aims to identify which cognitive processes animals use to understand their environment.

Roland Geyer is Professor at UCSB’s Bren School of Environmental Science and Management. Prior to joining the Bren School he held research positions in Germany, France, and the UK. Since 2000 he has worked with a wide range of governmental organization, trade associations, and companies on environmental sustainability issues. Roland has won multiple awards for his work, such as the International Statistic of the Year, and been featured widely in the media, like CBS 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday Morning, and PBS News Hour. He has a graduate degree in physics and a PhD in engineering. Learn more about Roland and his work on www.rolandgeyer.com.

Dan Cooley is a Professor or Statistics at Colorado State University and is a past member and chair of the ASA’s Advisory Committee on Climate Change Policy.  Dan’s research is primarily focuses on developing statistical methods for the study of extreme values and is largely motivated by problems in atmospheric science. Dr. Michael F. Wehner is a senior staff scientist in the Computational Research Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Wehner’s current research concerns the behavior of extreme weather events in a changing climate, especially heat waves, intense precipitation, drought and tropical cyclones.

Bekah McBride is a science writer and communications specialist who has worked with both companies and universities to turn data and research into applicable and actionable messages that inspire change. She holds a B.S. in Life Science Communication with an emphasis in Business from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a M.A. in Journalism from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her work has been published on DataJournalism.com and in Significance.

John Pullinger is the current president of International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS) and finished his five-year term as United Kingdom National Statistician, Head of the Government Statistical Service (GSS) and Chief Executive of the UK Statistics Authority in June 2019. There, his role was to safeguard the production and publication of high quality official statistics by all departments, agencies and institutions in the UK. On appointment he described his role as to, “mobilize the power of data to help Britain make better decisions.” He also has represented the UK internationally in EU, UN, OECD and other forums. He was both Chair and Vice-Chair of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC).

Amanda Makulec is the Senior Data Visualization Lead at Excella and holds a Masters of Public Health from the Boston University School of Public Health. She worked with data in global health programs for eight years before joining Excella, where she leads teams and develops user-centered data visualization products for federal, non-profit, and private sector clients. Amanda volunteers as the Operations Director for the Data Visualization Society and is a co-organizer for Data Visualization DC. Find her on Twitter at @abmakulec