Today, Significance is delighted to announce the finalists of the 2022 Statistical Excellence Award for Early-Career Writing, with stories about baseball, synthetic data, and romcoms all making the cut.
Judges met last week to review submissions from writers in Australia, Belgium, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, who between them encompass a diverse range of topics including conservation, sport, healthcare – including Covid-19 – and developments in statistics.
After a lively debate, judges selected the following three finalists (in alphabetical order):
- Veronica Carlan, a PhD student at the University of Maryland, for the article ‘How to lose a girl in two standard deviations: Where are the STEM rom-coms?’
- Achilleas Ghinis, a Masters student at KU Leuven University, for the article ‘How fake is real enough? Privacy and synthetic data’
- Lee Kennedy-Shaffer, an assistant professor in mathematics and statistics at Vassar College, for the article ‘Baseball’s natural experiment’
“This year’s entrants showcased how statistics and data are being used to understand and improve so many facets of life on this planet,” said Significance editor Anna Britten. “Every submission was an impressive and interesting read but these three finalists stood out for their vibrancy and clarity of purpose. Congratulations to them all!”
The winner of this year’s award will be announced on Thursday 14 July as part of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) Statistical Excellence Awards Ceremony. Register now to attend. The three finalists will be invited to present papers based on their articles at the RSS 2022 Annual Conference, which takes place 12-15 September in Aberdeen. The winning article will be published in an upcoming print edition of Significance and online. Runners-up will also be published online.
The Statistical Excellence Award for Early-Career Writing is jointly awarded by Significance and the RSS Young Statisticians Section.
