Karry Roberts, ASA Detroit Chapter Secretary

From March 7–9, members of the Detroit and Ann Arbor chapters reviewed projects at the Michigan Science & Engineering Fair for ASA awards meant to encourage the practice and profession of statistics.

This year’s judging team included Lance Heilbrun, Karry Roberts, Bern DeBacker, Frank Murdock, Robert Podolsky, David Corliss, Nahid Keshavarzi, Jennie Jester, and Anamaria Kazanis, who is a Council of Chapters representative to the ASA Board of Directors.

The team developed a scorecard and split the projects up for initial review. Then, they reviewed the highest scoring projects as a team in a Zoom meeting to decide on the award winners. Judging criteria included study design, graphical displays, data visualization, use of basic statistical methods, interpretation, and discussion of limitations.

This year’s award winners were selected from 52 projects by Michigan high-school students who qualified for the state level of the competition.

This science fair judging event is a long-standing annual joint chapter activity for the Detroit and Ann Arbor chapters, though all four Michigan chapters are invited to participate. Both chapters contributed funds to support monetary awards for the students whose projects showed the best use of statistics.

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