Stats + Stories

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Myths on the Pitch | Stats + Stories Episode 279 May 25, 2023

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There’s an idea in soccer that getting a red card and being down a player can actually make a team stronger. That going from 11 to 10 players forces a team to fight harder to protect their end and to hustle more quickly to score goals. But does that idea actually hold up on the pitch? Does the team actually become harder to beat? That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Mat Dowsett. Dowsett is a Senior Expert in Lean Six Sigma with Roboyo, a global company specializing in automation and process improvement. In his free time, he is fond of the statistics side of process improvement and as a sports lover enjoys using statistics to answer tricky problems or to explore well-known myths. He recently authored an article in Significance about whether red cards can actually make soccer teams tougher.

The Conduit to Persuasion | Stats + Stories Episode 278 May 18, 2023

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Researchers have spent decades trying to understand why some messages stick with audiences while others are ignored. They’ve experimented with humor and anger, trying to figure out what emotions fuel engagement. Narrative connection is increasingly seen as a conduit to persuasion and that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest John Tchernev. Tchernev is an Assistant Professor of Strategic Communication at Miami University. Before academia, Tchernev worked in Los Angeles on shows like Reba, Class of 3000, and Futurama. His research examines the persuasive power of narratives and satire, audience psychology, and media multitasking.

Manipulating Media and Destroying Democracy | Stats + Stories Episode 277 May 11, 2023

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Researchers around the world are tracking misinformation and disinformation as they move through media ecosystems. The explosion of disinformation in particular is not an accident. In fact, one researcher argues that it has been weaponized by some on the right to erode democracy. That claim is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Dr. Francesca Tripodi. Dr. Francesca Tripodi is a sociologist and media scholar whose research examines the relationship between social media, political partisanship, and democratic participation, revealing how Google and Wikipedia are manipulated for political gains. She is an assistant professor at the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS), a senior faculty researcher with the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and an affiliate at the Data & Society Research Institute. In 2019, Dr. Tripodi testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on her research, explaining how search processes are gamed to maximize exposure and drive ideologically based queries. Her research has been covered by The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Columbia Journalism Review, Wired, The Guardian, and The Neiman Journalism Lab.

C.R. Rao: A Statistics Legend | Stats + Stories Episode 276 May 04, 2023

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The International Prize in Statistics is one of the most prestigious prizes in the field. Awarded every two years at the ISI World Statistics Congress, it’s designed to recognize a single statistician or a team of statisticians for a significant body of work. This year’s winner is C.R. Rao, professor emeritus at Pennsylvania State University and Research Professor at the University at Buffalo. Rao’s created and been honored for a number of contributions to the statistical world in his over 75-year career. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, with our guests Sreenivas Rao Jammalamadaka and Krishna Kumar. Jammalamadaka is a distinguished professor in U.C. Santa Barbara’s Department of Statistics and Applied Probability. Kumar is a management consultant in business analytics and consulting economist. The two wrote letters supporting C.R. Rao’s nomination for the International Prize in Statistics.

The Data We Gather from Bird Banding | Stats + Stories Episode 275 Apr 27, 2023

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Three billion, that’s how many birds the United States and Canada have lost since 1970. That decline shows up among threatened species as well as among birds we might find in our backyards like sparrows or woodpeckers. One way scientists track the size and health of bird populations is through bird banding and that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Dave Russel Our guest today is Dave Russell. Russell is an Associate Teaching Professor in Miami University’s Department of Biology and co-founder of the Avian Research and Education Institute. He’s also a master bird bander, which means he can work with federally protected birds and train others to become bird banders.

Homegrown National Park | Stats + Stories Episode 274 Apr 20, 2023

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As we prepare to mark Earth Day 2023, many of us are also coming to terms with the latest climate report from the IPCC which said the world is on the brink of catastrophic warming. News like that can make it hard for individuals to know what they can do to have an impact on the environment. One movement suggests we can all help with conservation efforts by planting local that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Doug Tallamy. Doug Tallamy is the T. A. Baker Professor of Agriculture in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has authored 111 research publications and has taught insect related courses for 41 years. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities. His books include Bringing Nature Home, The Living Landscape, co-authored with Rick Darke, Nature's Best Hope, a New York Times Best Seller, The Nature of Oaks, winner of the American Horticultural Society’s 2022 book award. In 2021 he cofounded Homegrown National Park with Michelle Alfandari. His awards include recognition from The Garden Writer’s Association, Audubon, The National Wildlife Federation, Allegheny College, Ecoforesters, The Garden Club of America and The American Horticultural Association.

School Shooting Statistics | Stats + Stories Episode 273 Apr 13, 2023

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By the end of March, Education Week had reported that 13 school shootings had already taken place in the US this year, that’s coming off of 2022, which saw 51 school shootings, the most since Education Week started tracking them in 2018. As communities recover and victims heal, experts, educators, and parents all search for ways of preventing gun violence in schools. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, with guests Nancy La Vigne and Alexis Piquero. La Vigne is the Director of the National Institute of Justice. She’s a nationally recognized criminal justice policy expert and former nonprofit executive whose expertise ranges from policing and corrections reform to reentry, criminal justice technologies and evidence-based criminal justice practices. Piquero is the Director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. He leads the Bureau’s activities on a range of data collection on matters related to crime and the justice system. Piquero is a nationally and internationally recognized criminologist with more than 25 years of experience.

Misinformation Immunization | Stats + Stories Episode 272 Apr 06, 2023

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The spread of misinformation is of increasing interest to researchers around the world. It’s been tied to the 2016 and 2020 US elections, Brexit, the COVID pandemic, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Some have called the glut of misinformation a pandemic in its own right. A researcher at Cambridge University suggests that, as with other pandemics, the solution just might be a vaccine. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Sander van der Linden. Van der Linden is Professor of Social Psychology in Society in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. His research interests center around the psychology of human judgment, communication, and decision-making. In particular, he’s interested in the influence and persuasion process and how people gain resistance to persuasion (by misinformation) through psychological inoculation. That’s the focus of his new book, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity.

Fighting TB with Music | Stats + Stories Episode 271 Mar 30, 2023

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Pop stars are often involved in raising the visibility of public health issues. Elton John is one obvious example for his work on HIV/AIDS. Rarely, though are pop-stars involved in gathering public health stats. Ugandan pop star Bebe Cool is the exception and his work to combat tuberculosis is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories. Sandra Alba is an epidemiologist at KIT Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. She trained as a medical statistician in the UK and soon after moved to Tanzania to complete a PhD program on access to malaria treatment. For the past 15 years, she has applied statistical and epidemiological methods to evaluate public health programs in low- and middle-income countries. Her research focuses on data quality and good epidemiological practice - specifically the interplay between research integrity and fairness in multi-disciplinary international research collaborations. Dr. Amera Khan is the Technical Officer at Stop TB Partnership in Switzerland whose goal is to reach TB-affected people and communities wherever they are to create innovative and new solutions for affected populations.

The Statistics Behind a Bank Collapsing | Stats + Stories Episode 270 Mar 23, 2023

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The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in early March left many wondering whether the global financial system was on the precipice of a 2008 style meltdown. Just as the waters seemed to calm after that, UBS stepped in to buy Credit Suisse as that bank collapsed and as we record this regional First Republic Bank seemed to be teetering. The risks inherent to and the regulation of banking is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Dr. John Liechty. Dr. Liechty is a Professor at the Smeal College of Business, with a courtesy appointment as a Professor of Statistics at the Eberly College of Science. He is interested in the creation of public goods and the role that universities can play in these efforts. Past initiatives include leading an effort that resulted in a provision in the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 that creates a new Office in the U.S. Treasury, the Office of Financial Research, which has the mandate to provide better data and analytic tools to the regulatory community in order to safeguard the U.S. financial system.

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