Stats + Stories

Women’s World Cup action in Austrailia and New Zealand has wrapped up and Spain’s been crowned the champion. After players and fans headed home, residents were left to clean up after them. Hosts of such tournaments are also left to tackle the human rights implications of hosting an event that massive. The human rights impacts of something like the World Cup are incredibly hard to measure and that...

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...

Matthew Shearing is a private sector consultant working globally in partnership with the public, private and not-for-profit sectors on improving official statistics and other data systems, Monitoring and Evaluation, and embedding official statistics standards in wider international development. David Stern is a Mathematical Scientist and Educator. He is a former lecturer in the School of Mathemati...

Natalie Shlomo is Professor of Social Statistics since joining the faculty in September 2012. She was the head of the Department of Social Statistics (2014-2017). Her research interests are in topics related to survey statistics and survey methodology. She is the UK principle investigator for several collaborative grants from the 7th Framework Programme and H2020 of the European Union all involvin...

Tim Macuga joined the QUT Centre for Data Science at the start of 2022 where he expands connections and amplifies research for the Centre and for the Australian Data Science Network. Before he joined CDS, Tim served as Media and Communications Officer for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematical and Statistical Frontiers (ACEMS). There, he led the creation of all the content for news on the C...

Communicating facts about science well, is an art. Especially if you are trying to reach an audience outside your area of expertise. A statistician in Norway however, is convinced that how you say something is just as important as what you say when it comes to science communication. That topic is the focus of this episode of Stats+Stories with guest Jo Røislien. Jo Røislien is a professor of medic...

Kelly Spoon a tenured faculty member at San Diego Mesa College. She teaches mathematics and statistics within the Mathematics department. She’s had a number of different roles on campus and within my department, including STEM Professional Learning Coordinator and is involved in statistics education and focused on culturally responsive teaching. Amy Hogan is an NYC high school teacher. Currently t...

The Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education, aka CAUSE has held the United States Conference on teaching statistics, also known as USCOTS every other year since 2005. This conference enables teachers of statistics to exchange ideas and discover how to improve their teaching. The theme of this year's conference was communicating with and about data, a topic near and dea...

What is the best way to support people living in extreme poverty? Could unconditional cash transfers and universal basic income be viable options? How can we know if such programs will work? Today's episode of stats and stories focuses on addressing the needs of people living in extreme poverty with Miriam Laker. Dr. Miriam Laker is the Global Director of Research at GiveDirectly and a Senior Rese...

The Women’s World Cup is about to kick off in Australia and New Zealand with the defending champion U.S. Women’s national team once again the favorite to win the whole thing. They will have to make it past the English, Spanish, and German sides though, before they raise the world cup trophy high. A new book new out now explores the tournament with guest Adam Beissel. Adam Beissel (@ExtraBeissHit)...

Where do you live? Who are your neighbors? Do you rent or own? What housing is available in your community? Today’s episode of stats and stories focuses on how and why we want to understand Americans’ experience with housing, with guest Dr. Emily Molfino.  Dr. Emily Molfino is the Special Assistant to the Chief Scientist at the U.S. Census Bureau. Her work focuses on improving data dissemination a...

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...

The news landscape is continuously in flux as new media technologies are developed and audience needs shift. This mix of new tech and new needs, has made it important that audiences be able to understand quantitive information. A research project between Knology and PBS NewsHour is studying just how people consume news and numbers. That project is the focus of this episode of Stats & Stories with...

A recent blog post in The Hill stated, “reliable research on data and crime is more valuable than ever.” With more and more headlines about spiking crime rates, the question has to be asked. Do data back that up? Who better to answer that question than our guests who coordinate agencies to give us an accurate assessment of these questions, Nancy La Vigne Alexis Piquero. Nancy La Vigne is the Direc...

Death happens in medical settings for all kinds of reasons. However, when a death is unexpected, it can leave loved ones grieving and investigators wondering whether it was a case of medical misconduct, or medical murder. When investigators decide to bring a case to trial, they often rely on statistics to make their argument. The Royal Statistical Society released a report this year about such cas...

With Brexit and the United Kingdom’s severing of many formal connections to the European Union have come economic shocks. Trade between the two has become more complicated. Travel has become more difficult. The labor market could also take a beating because of Brexit and that’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Kristina Sargent. Sargent is an Assistant Professor of Economic...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 t...

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 e...

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 episo...

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 th...

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 Inst...