Stats + Stories

Latest Episodes:

The Impact of Remote Learning | Stats + Stories Episode 189 May 20, 2021

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Parents, educators, and activists have all raised concerns about the impact of COVID on the educational experience of students. For high school students, these issues are amplified as they consider graduation and what may come after. The impact of COVID on high school grades is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Harrison Schramm. Harrison Schramm is a Principal Research Scientist at Group W as well as President-Elect at the Analytics Society of INFORMS. Prior to joining INFORMS he was a Senior Fellow at Center For Strategic And Budgetary Assessments and has been a leader in the Operations Research community for the past decade. Before that, he had a successful career in the US Navy, where he served as a Helicopter Pilot, Military Assistant Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School, and as a lead Operations Research Analyst in the Pentagon. His areas of emphasis were large-scale simulation models, statistics, optimization, and applied probability. His research interests lie at the intersection of data and mathematical models.

Understanding What Causes Data Bias | Stats + Stories Episode 188 May 13, 2021

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Our modern understanding of big data and the increasingly sophisticated tools we have for analyzing them have opened up whole new worlds for exploration. And, sometimes, whole new avenues for the misuse of data, which has led some to wonder who should be responsible or held accountable for data misuse or data bias? That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with Charna Parkey. Dr. Charna Parkey is a lead data scientist at Kaskada, where she works on the team to deliver a commercially available data platform for machine learning. Her interests include analysis of different language patterns as well as using data science to combat systemic oppression. She has over 15 years’ experience in enterprise data science and adaptive algorithms in the defense and startup tech sectors and has worked with dozens of Fortune 500 companies in her work as a data scientist.

The COVID Decade | Stats + Stories Episode 187 May 06, 2021

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It’s been a little over a year of lockdowns, curfews, online schooling, mask wearing, worry and grief. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it an experience of collective trauma that researchers will be studying for years to come. The British Academy has launched one such study COVID119 and Society: Shaping the COVID Decade. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Dr. Molly Morgan Jones. Dr. Molly Morgan Jones is the Director of Policy at The British Academy. She oversees all the Academy’s policy work and activities, on topics ranging from how the humanities and social sciences can shape a post-pandemic future, to purposeful business, cohesive societies, policies supporting childhood, and higher education and skills policy. Prior to joining the Academy, she worked at RAND Europe, an independent policy research institute, where she specialized in research and innovation policy as well as worked for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Coding in the Classroom | Stats + Stories Episode 186 Apr 29, 2021

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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.

COVID-19 Vaccine Safety and Risk | Stats + Stories Episode 185 Apr 22, 2021

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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.

The Data Privacy Landscape is Changing | Stats + Stories Episode 183 Apr 15, 2021

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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.

Collaboration is the Best of Statistics | Stats + Stories Episode 183 Apr 08, 2021

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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.

The Probability of the Next Terrorist Attack | Stats + Stories Episode 182 Apr 01, 2021

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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.

How Where You Live Affects Your Health | Stats + Stories Episode 181 Mar 25, 2021

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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.

An Anti-Racist Approach to Data Science | Stats + Short Stories Episode 180 Mar 18, 2021

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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.

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