D. Anthony Miles

Researcher and statistician D. Anthony Miles recently reached a milestone in his career when he won the Best Paper Award for his applied statistics research in marketing and economics at the 2021 Academy of Business Research Conference (ABR)—marking a record of 21 awards over 10 years at this national conference.

All Miles’s awards are for his applied multivariate statistics research in marketing and economics. The scope of his research includes marketing, consumer behavior, and political marketing and voter behavior.

In 2011, he won his first Best Paper Award for research on predictive analytics in entrepreneurial risk patterns that cause failure in small business enterprises. Last year, he won the Best Paper Award four times, and he won it three times in 2019. Mostly notably, in 2020, his research team won the Best Paper Award for their four-year study on the 2020 presidential election and key predictive analytics in candidate attributes that predict voter behavior and election wins.

Miles was asked to be part of an IBM- and SPSS-sponsored industry event, “How Industry Experts Are Using IBM SPSS Statistics for Better Outcomes,” in 2020. He was one of four industry statistics experts interviewed for the white paper and podcast about using SPSS for their statistics research.

Miles recently agreed to join the editorial review board for ABR’s new journal, the Journal of Data Analytics.

Hollylynne S. Lee

ASA Fellow Hollylynne S. Lee, professor of mathematics and statistics education in the North Carolina State College of Education and senior faculty fellow at the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation, has been selected as one of three finalists for Baylor University’s 2022 Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching.

The Cherry Award is designed to honor great teachers and encourage departments and institutions to value their own great teachers. The recipient of the Cherry Award will receive a prize of $250,000 and teach in residence at Baylor University during the 2022 fall or 2023 spring semester; travel expenses and a furnished apartment will be provided. To further Baylor University’s commitment to great teaching, the award recipient’s home department will receive $25,000.

Read more about Lee’s work and her thoughts about the Cherry Award.

Human Rights Data Analysis Group

The 36th Rafto Prize was awarded to the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) for their work on uncovering large-scale human rights violations. By using statistics and data science, HRDAG documents human rights violations that might otherwise go undetected. Their approach has enabled courts to bring perpetrators to justice and given closure to affected victims and their families.

HRDAG seeks to uphold credible information as a foundation of human rights advocacy and justice and, by doing so, represent a new generation of human rights defenders advancing the enforcement of human rights globally.

HRDAG also promotes accountability for human rights abuse. Evidence is crucial in demanding accountability and justice. Systematic documentation of human rights violations exposes the scope of transgressions. This is central to putting an end to impunity for perpetrators and vital for the protection and empowerment of human rights activists on the frontline. HRDAG’s rigorous methods and analyses also ensure every death is counted and a minimum standard of human dignity is upheld.

The HRDAG team, including ASA members Megan Price and Patrick Ball, consists of a small group of dedicated experts in computer science, software development, mathematical and applied statistics, and demography. In their work, HRDAG team members partner with human rights defenders, experts, and organizations worldwide.

The Rafto Prize aims to highlight the importance of HRDAG and other human rights defenders’ work to seek and uphold the truth as a foundation of human rights advocacy and justice. HRDAG is being recognized for its pioneering approach and commitment to detecting and deterring human rights violators by providing reliable scientific documentation.

Read more about the prize.