Stats + Stories The Stats + Stories Team

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 that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the series “2C: Beyond the Limit.” Stevens came to The Post from Axios, where he designed news graphics and worked on data-driven investigations. Stevens's journalism career has also included stints at the Hindustan Times in New Delhi, India, and the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah.

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 journalist to shed light on the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics. The only prerequisite for enjoying this book is an interest in developing the skills and insights for better understanding news stories that incorporate quantitative information.

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, University of Virginia. She co-founded and led the Social and Decision Analytics Division in 2013, starting at Virginia Tech and moving to the University of Virginia in 2018. Dr. Shipp’s work spans topics related to using all data to advance policy, the science of data science, community analytics, and innovation. She leads and engages in local, state, and federal projects to assess data quality and the ethical use of new and traditional data sources. She is leading the development of the Curated Data Enterprise (CDE) that aligns with the Census Bureau’s modernization and transformation and their Statistical Products First approach. She is a member of the American Statistical Association’s Committee on Professional Ethics, Symposium on Data Science and Statistics (SDSS) Committee, and the Professional Issues and Visibility Council. She is an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow, and an American Statistical Association (ASA) Fellow. She received the ASA Founder’s award in 2022.

Donna LaLonde is the Associate Executive Director of the American Statistical Association (ASA) where she works with talented colleagues to advance the vision and mission of the ASA. Prior to joining the ASA in 2015, she was a faculty member at Washburn University where she enjoyed teaching and learning with colleagues and students; she also served in various administrative positions including interim chair of the Education Department and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs. At the ASA, she supports activities associated with presidential initiatives, accreditation, education, and professional development. She also is a cohost of the Practical Significance podcast which John and Rosemary appeared on last year.

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 former panelist Richard Campbell, and guest Jim Albert who helped usher the show into what it has become today. So without further ado here is episode one, “Baseball and Statistics” with Jim Albert.
The second episode features Terence Moore. Moore, who has worked at Atlanta Journal Constitution, CNN, ESPN and other notable outlets had a lot to say about “Reporting On Sports In The Digital Era” so I’ll let him take it away with episode 18.
Last but certainly not least, we have a much more modern episode of the show which ironically happens to be about the oldest “Numbers Behind America’s Pastime”. Christopher Phillips joined us in episode 177 to discuss the entirety of baseball history from the first big league reporter from the early 1900s to the moneyball craze over a century later. Thank you again for listening to this bundled episode of Stats+Stories and send any feedback on the format and what you thought about this episode to our email statsandstories@miamioh.edu and enjoy this final trip to the vault.

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 the communication of statistics. Follow her on Twitter (@sastoudt) and check out her recent book with Deborah Nolan, Communicating with Data: The Art of Writing for Data Science.

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 Health at Miami University and is a past President of the MWACSM and a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. She teaches Exercise Science-related courses and has received university commendations for her teaching. She has been funded by NIH, private foundations, and corporations to support research, teaching, and service projects. She has published 2 books, 13 book chapters, and 56 journal articles, as well as national and international peer reviewed blogs, infographics, and NPR broadcasts. She is listed in the top 2% of Exercise Scientists cited in the world by Stanford University researchers. Her work on academic integrity includes co-editing a special edition of a journal on the topic that was the most widely published for the Journal of Excellence in College Teaching.