Stats + Stories

At Stats+Stories we're lucky to have listeners who put up with John's bad jokes and our general shenanigans. In fact, you've listened to 199 discussions of the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics. To mark our 100th episode we asked you to submit statistical headlines and a haiku won. For 200 we took to Twitter using the #MemeMedianMode hashtag and this time those th...

Twitter can be cacophonous at times – one a given day, serious analysis of the situation in Afghanistan, news stories about climate change, and Parry Gripp’s Music for Cat Piano Volume 1 can all compete for a user’s attention. This has only become more clear during the COVID 19 pandemic as it seems almost everyone is tweeting about the disease, with varying levels of expertise. However, there have...

The tenure track process at American universities is a grind – one shaped by the old adage to “Publish or perish.” But if a junior faculty member manages to successfully navigate the process – publishing as expected, learning to manage a classroom, participating in service – then they’re rewarded with tenure. Tenure is an almost permanent employment relationship at universities that’s designed to...

Talking about statistics with my journalism colleagues is the basis of what brings this show together. But speaking about, and communicating statistical work with journalists, and understanding our interdisciplinary relationship in the era of fake news and misinformation is more important than ever. That's the focus of this week’s episode of Stats and Short Stories with guest Kevin McConway. Kevin...

Being able to read and write is necessary to be successful in work, at home, and in civic life. Do parallel skills associated with critical reasoning from numbers and data carry similar weight? What do you need to know to be an informed consumer of numeric information, and to use such information? That's the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Iddo Gal. Iddo Gal is an Associate Profe...

In honor of this year's Joint Statistical Meetings, this week's episode is a repost of a conversation John Bailer and Brain Tarran, of Significance Magazine, had at JSM 2019 about communicating statistical information at a large-scale professional event. John Bailer is “the stats guy” and co-creator of Stats+Stories. He is also a University Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of St...

Communicating statistics effectively can be a difficult task it can sometimes be hard to know how much information someone needs in order to understand a particular set of numbers. Jargon can be another stumbling block to clearly communicating what a statistical finding means. Communicating stats clearly is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Kevin McConway Kevin McConway is...

About 20 years ago, most people would have been unfamiliar with the term crowdfunding. Now, when it comes to the arts, you can crowdfund anything from comic books to Mystery Science Theater 3 Thousand to musical compositions. What it takes to successfully crowdfund a rock project is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guests Moinak Bhaduri, Dominique Haughton and Piaomu Liu. Moinak...

Our lives are framed by numbers tracking our performance in school, our financial health, and our physical and emotional wellbeing. While this information can help us figure out what we might do to improve a situation, it’s only part of the statistical story. There’s other information, other data, that might be useful as well. The importance of linking data is the focus of this episode of Stats an...

Over the course of the last year, statistics have framed our lives in very obvious ways. From COVID cases to unemployment rates, stats have helped us understand what’s happening in the wider world. As we contemplate how to “build back better” in the aftermath of the pandemic, official statistics could help guide our way, at least, that’s what the authors of a recent Significance Magazine article t...

For years now, the utility of the P-value in scientific and statistical research has been under scrutiny – the debate shaped by concerns about the seeming over-reliance on p-values to decide what’s worth publishing or what’s worth pursuing. In 2016 the American Statistical Association released a statement on P-values, meant to remind readers that, “The P-values was never intended to be a substitut...

Every two years the International Prize in Statistics is given out to recognize an individual or team for major contributions to the field of statistics particularly those that have practical applications or which lead to breakthroughs in other disciplines. The winner is chosen in a collaboration between the American Statistical Association, the Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, the Interna...

The universe seems unbelievably vast, a sky filled with countless stars and worlds. Well, maybe not so countless as there’s a whole field devoted to crunching the numbers associated with an ever-expanding universe. Astrostatistics is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories Jessi Cisewski-Kehe is an assistant professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. H...

Enter with your meme for a chance to appear on the show. All entries are submitted through Twitter through the official Stats+Stories account (https://twitter.com/statsandstories) by July 10th for entry.

Where are the best locations for food pantries? What are the patterns and use of a crisis call center? How can services be improved for the senior population of Wahtenaw County in Michigan? These questions share a common denominator, they represent data and analysis needs of community service organizations. Statistics in the service of the community is the focus of this episode of Stats and Storie...

Big data, though not new, is often talked about as though it is. It’s become something of a buzzword associated with everything from politics to record sales to epidemiology. But, not all big data is created the same – some of it might not even be that big at all. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Xiao-Li Meng Xiao-Li Meng is the Whipple V. N. Jones Professor of Stat...

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 Scient...

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. Charn...

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. Mo...

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 Jame...

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 produc...

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 the...

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 Mathemat...

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 & E...

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 Unive...