Stats + Stories

Liberty Vittert is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor at Washington University in St. Louis and on leave from her position at the University of Glasgow as the Mitchell Lecturer. She will be a Visiting Assistant Professor at Harvard University in the Department of Statistics beginning summer of 2019. She is a graduate of MIT as well as Le Cordon Blue Paris and the University of Glasgow. Her current statistical research involves using facial shape analysis to help children with facial deformities. Liberty is a regular TV and Radio contributor to many news organizations including BBC, ITV, Channel 4, PBS, and FNC, as well as having her own TV series on STV (ITV). Her opinion editorials appear in Popular Science, US News, Newsweek, Business Insider, International Business Times, CBS News, The Conversation, and Fox News. As a Royal Statistical Society Ambassador, BBC Expert Woman, and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute, Liberty is writing a series of popular science books on how to lie with statistics from the viewpoint of multiple professions. She is also an Associate Editor for the Harvard Data Science Review. Liberty is also on the board of USA for the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) as well as being on the board for The Hive (a data initiative), one of the Fast Company's top 6 most innovative non-profits.

The U.N. and Statistics | Stats + Stories Episode 86 by The Stats + Stories Team

Dr. Lloyd Edwards is Professor and Chair of Biostatistics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Dr. Edwards has an extensive background in collaborating with researchers in a broad range of areas in biomedical research, including cardiovascular disease, cystic fibrosis, cancer, aging, pediatrics, and minority health. His primary area of applied statistical research relates to the analysis of longitudinal data. Specifically, his statistical research includes derivation of techniques for computation of power, control of Type I error, and measuring model fit in linear and generalized linear mixed models.

Megan Price is the executive director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG), and designs strategies and methods for statistical analysis of human rights data for projects in a variety of locations including Guatemala, Colombia, and Syria. She has contributed analyses submitted as evidence in two court cases in Guatemala and has served as the lead statistician and author on three UN reports documenting deaths in Syria

Lance A. Waller, Ph.D. is Rollins Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University. He is a member of the National Academy of Science Board on Mathematical Sciences and Analytics and has served on National Academies Committees on applied and theoretical statistics, cancer near nuclear facilities, geographic assessments of exposures to Agent Orange, and standoff explosive technologies.

Julia Silge is a data scientist at Stack Overflow, with a PhD in astrophysics and an abiding love for Jane Austen. She is both an international speaker and a real-world practitioner focusing on data analysis and machine learning practice. She is the author of Text Mining with R, with her coauthor David Robinson. She loves making beautiful charts and communicating about technical topics with diverse audiences.

Christie Aschwanden is the author of GOOD TO GO: What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery and the lead science writer at FiveThirtyEight. Her new podcast, Emerging Form  launches in mid-February. Find her on Twitter @CragCrest.

Mark Glickman, a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, is Senior Lecturer on Statistics at Harvard University, and Senior Statistician at the Center for Healthcare Organization and Implementation Research, a VA Center of Innovation.  He is well-known for his work in games and sports, having created the Glicko and Glicko-2 rating systems that are widely used in online gaming.

Julia Silge is a data scientist at Stack Overflow, with a PhD in astrophysics and an abiding love for Jane Austen. She is both an international speaker and a real-world practitioner focusing on data analysis and machine learning practice. She is the author of Text Mining with R, with her coauthor David Robinson. She loves making beautiful charts and communicating about technical topics with diverse audiences.

Mark Hansen is a professor of journalism where he also serves as the Director of the David and Helen Gurley Brown Institute for Media Innovation. Founded in 2012, the Brown Institute is a bi-coastal collaboration between Columbia Journalism School and the School of Engineering at Stanford University -- its mission is to explore the interplay between technology and story.  Prior to joining Columbia, Hansen was a Professor in the Department of Statistics at UCLA. In addition to his technical work, Hansen also has an active art practice involving the presentation of data for the public. His work with the Office for Creative Research has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, the London Science Museum, the Cartier Foundation in Paris, and the lobbies of the New York Times building and the Public Theater (permanent displays) in Manhattan. Hansen holds a BS in Applied Math from the University of California, Davis, and a PhD and MA in Statistics from the University of California, Berkeley.