Stats + Stories

Journalists are often tasked with making complicated information accessible to a wide audience. Given mere minutes or inches to communicate information that might have taken a researcher pages to explain. Financial data can be particularly tricky to translate as it can require not only a comfort level with numbers but also some understanding of financial markets or economic principles. Reporting o...

How do you learn about what’s going on in the world? Did a news headline grab your attention? Did a news story report on recent research? What do you need to know to be a critical consumer of the news you read? If you are looking to start developing your data self-defense and critical news consumption skills, this book is for you! It reflects a long-term collaboration between a statistician and a...

As you reach the end of a long day with an excess of stress how do you recharge? Have you found that a long stroll in the sun or through the woods can provide this renewal? Walking in nature is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Dr. Altea Lorenzo-Arribas. Dr. Altea Lorenzo-Arribas is a socio-economic statistician at Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) working in colla...

Would you be surprised if a wombat won a statistical achievement award? well our guest Noel Cressie is here to talk about the WOllongong Methodology for Bayesian Assimilation of Trace-gases and how it can impact the environmental landscape. Noel Cressie is Distinguished Professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia, and Director of its Centre for Environmental Informatics, which is a vibran...

Newsrooms struggle with communicating climate data. Some worry about being too alarmist, while others worry about communicating the data clearly. One American newspaper has a column devoted to breaking down climate data, which is the focus of this Episode of Stats+Stories with guest Harry Steven. Harry Stevens is the Climate Lab columnist at The Washington Post. He was part of a team at The Post t...

How do you learn about what’s going on in the world? Did a news headline grab your attention? Did a news story report on recent research? What do you need to know to be a critical consumer of the news you read? If you are looking to start developing your data self-defense and critical news consumption skills, this book is for you! It reflects a long-term collaboration between a statistician and a...

What fundamental values should data scientists and statisticians bring to their work? What principles should guide the work of data scientists and statisticians? What does right and wrong mean in the context of an analysis? That’s the topic of today's stats and stories episode with guests Stephanie Shipp and Donna LeLonde Stephanie Shipp is a research professor at the Biocomplexity Institute, Univ...

Welcome to Stats+Stories today we are trying something a bit different, with Major League Baseball’s opening day just hours away from the release of this episode we thought we would go back into the vault and throw some old school Stats+Stories baseball episodes at you. The first of which is as far back as you can go into the Stats+Stories archive, our first episode with former host Bob Long forme...

Communicating clearly about data can be difficult but it’s also crucial if you want audiences to understand your work. Whether it’s through writing or speaking telling a compelling story about data can make it less abstract. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Sara Stoudt. Sara Stoudt is an applied statistician at Bucknell University with research interests in ecology and...

Hybrid cars are everywhere now but what is your best option if you want to feel the wind in your hair, or at least under your helmet and you want to get a little exercise as well? Well, e-bikes are an answer and that’s the topic on this episode of Stats + Short Stories with guest Helaine Alessio. Helaine Alessio, PhD, FACSM is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Kinesiology, Nutrition, and...

Dr Altea Lorenzo-Arribas is a socio-economic statistician at Biomathematics and Statistics Scotland (BioSS) working in collaboration with researchers at the Scottish Environment, Food and Agriculture Research Institutions. She is an elected council member of the Royal Statistical Society and secretary of the History of Statistics Section, as well as a member of the Women Committee of the Spanish S...

Long after Harry Nilsson said, “one is the loneliest number,” and after Bob Seger sang about feeling like a number, music streaming services are using data to help of discover new music that connects to our frequent plays and preferences. Dr. Kobi Abayomi helps break that all down in this episode of Stats+Stories. Dr. Kobi Abayomi is the Head of Science for Gumbel Demand Acceleration - a Software...

How do you learn about what’s going on in the world? Did a news headline grab your attention? Did a news story report on recent research? What do you need to know to be a critical consumer of the news you read? If you are looking to start developing your data self-defense and critical news consumption skills, this book is for you! It reflects a long-term collaboration between a statistician and a...

Good data visualization can catapult a news story or research article from ho hum to extraordinary. A new book series is exploring the careers of information graphic visionaries. And that's the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest RJ Andrews. Data storyteller RJ Andrews is a practicing data storyteller and creator of several books on information graphics. He helps organizations solve...

According to the Pew Research Center, three in ten US adults say they've used a dating app, with Tinder, Match and Bumble being the apps most likely to have been tried. Pew's research has also found that one in 10 partnered adults in the US met their significant other on a dating app or site. Dating app success is a focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Dr. Liesel Sharabi. Dr. Lies...

Remember the pressure of taking a test when the teacher was glaring at you, daring your eyes to roam. Cheating was not a temptation unless your were desperate and willing to risk the everpresent teacher catching you. However, the offering of online classes exploded in recent years. So what happens when you’re testing during online classes that’s the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with gues...

According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics the number of people prosecuted for human trafficking offenses has more than doubled between 2011 and 2021. The National Human Trafficking hotline reports that it has identified more than 82,000 instances of human trafficking involving close to 165,000 victims. Researching human trafficking is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with our gu...

How do you learn about what's going on in the world? Did a news headline grab your attention? Did a news story report on recent research? What do you need to know to be a critical consumer of the news you read? If you are looking to start developing your data self-defense and critical news consumption skills, this book is for you! It reflects a long-term collaboration between a statistician and a...

As researchers and medical professionals struggle to get a handle on the COVID-19 pandemic, journalists struggle to tell the pandemic’s story with many news outlets increasingly turning to info graphics and data visualizations to help them do so. Visualizing data for news is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Harry Stevens. Harry Stevens joined The Washington Post as a graph...

For some people, shopping for clothes can feel like a step into Dante’s Inferno, all suffering and punishment. Even for those that do enjoy shopping it can hard to find something that fits well. The data for size is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Jordi Prats who recently wrote an article about the issue in Significance Magazine. Jordi Prats studied Biology at the University...

By the end of 2023 Bourbon is expected to be an almost 9 billion dollar industry. That’s a lot of mint julips and bourbons neat. But what makes bourbon so appealing, the chemistry behind this drink is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Michael Crowder. Dr. Michael Crowder is a Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Dean of the Graduate School at Miami University. Dr. Crowde...

Stats educators are continually looking for ways to get students excited about the subject and help them understand all stats can help them do. One high school educator discovered one way to do that was to throw out a standard curriculum and connect lessons more closely to student interests. That's the focus of this episode of stats and stories with guest Dashiell Young-Saver . Young-Saver is a Te...

How do you learn about what's going on in the world? Did a news headline grab your attention? Did a news story report on recent research? What do you need to know to be a critical consumer of the news you read? If you are looking to start developing your data self-defense and critical news consumption skills, this book is for you! It reflects a long-term collaboration between a statistician and a...

It's been 70 years since Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay summited Mount Everest. Since then hundreds of people attempt to climb the mountain each year. Many of those climbers are injured during their attempts. And during the 2023 climbing season 17 people died. Preparing for Everest takes years of training. Though there's disagreement among mountaineers about how to best prepare for the climb, s...

It’s been almost two years since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine with the UN estimating that more than 27,000 civilians of Ukraine have been killed or injured in the conflict. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops have been killed or injured while Russian forces have suffered over half a million casualties. The current situation has many wondering, “who is winning?” That’s the focus of thi...