| Event Description: Eric Vance, Director of the Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (LISA)
The Extraordinary Potential of Statistical Collaboration Laboratories
Statistics, applied mathematics, and data science provide powerful methods, tools, and ways of thinking for solving problems and making decisions, but not everyone who could benefit from applying quantitative science to their research has the knowledge or skills to apply it correctly. Furthermore, not every statistician or applied mathematician has the non-technical skills to effectively collaborate with researchers to solve problems or make decisions. The Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (LISA) is a statistical collaboration laboratory that addresses these two gaps to successfully generate, apply, and spread new knowledge throughout the state, the nation, and the world. LISA’s mission is to train statisticians to become interdisciplinary collaborators, provide research infrastructure to enable and accelerate high impact research, and engage with the community in outreach activities to improve statistical and data literacy. LISA has learned how to create statistical collaboration laboratories to train students to become effective collaborators and to provide research infrastructure for universities and is spreading this knowledge globally through the LISA 2020 Program to help scientists, government officials, businesses, and NGOs in developing countries discover local solutions to local problems through collaborations with statisticians and other quantitative scientists. The goal of LISA 2020 is to build a global network of 20 statistical collaboration laboratories in developing countries by 2020. So far five such stat labs have been created to train students to become effective interdisciplinary collaborators and enable researchers and government officials to solve problems and make better decisions. |
