Speaker Series
Statistics and Data Science in Society
Date+Time
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The MƒA Thursday Think Speaker Series brings accomplished speakers who dive into cutting-edge topics in STEM education to MƒA. These talks, held once a month throughout the school year, invite MƒA teachers and the general public to learn and engage with these thought leaders and professionals in mathematics, science, and education.
With the transformation of our modern society to an information-centric one driven by data and analytics in nearly all sectors, statistical literacy has become an essential life skill. Statistics and data science has emerged as one of the most popular fields of work and study, providing exciting opportunities for discovering and applying knowledge to help others and improve the world. In this Thursday Think talk, Dr. Jeffrey Morris shares how he found a passion for statistics and data science, along with the various professional uses for the field. He explores his efforts using statistics and data science during the COVID-19 pandemic to uncover insights into the virus, disease, treatments, and vaccines, and he demonstrates how the perspective of statistics and data science has been critical in discovering and communicating reliable knowledge to the public. He highlights how misunderstandings of statistical principles, like base rate fallacy and Simpson’s Paradox, have contributed to confusion and misinformation, and how the development of strong statistics and data science skills among students can help them navigate society.
Dr. Jeffrey Morris received his B.A. in Mathematics Education at Messiah College in Grantham, PA in 1993, and his Ph.D. in Statistics from Texas A&M University in 2000. He worked as a professor of Biostatistics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX from 2000 to 2019, before moving to the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in 2019 to become Director of the Division of Biostatistics. He has over 250 publications in peer-reviewed journals, received numerous professional awards for research innovation and mentoring, and served in executive leadership positions in statistical professional societies and editorial leadership positions for academic journals. During the pandemic, Dr. Morris authored a blog https://covid-datascience.com in which he attempts to use his skills and perspectives as a statistical data scientist to evaluate and synthesize accruing information in the pandemic, debunking misinformation and filtering out political and other sources of bias, to clearly communicate objective, empirically-based science about various aspects of the pandemic to the general audience. Through these efforts, he has been actively involved in scientific communication through television, radio, online, and print media sources.