My American Statistical Association journey began more than a decade ago. I had recently graduated from Cornell University with a degree in economics and was working for the New York City legislature—first as an aide to the council member representing Harlem and then as an analyst for the speaker in a unit responsible for data analysis and statistical modeling, among other tasks.
My experience in local government was formative. The Great Recession was over, but governments were still picking up the pieces. I gained an appreciation for the power and limitations of government, which would shape my research interests and future participation in ASA activities.
I attended the Eric and Wendy Schmidt Data Science for Social Good program at The University of Chicago in 2013. Following the program, several of us were interviewed for Amstat News, which was when I first became an ASA member.
I have since taken advantage of many ASA opportunities. To name a few, I was the 2016 ASA/STATS.org Public Understanding of Statistics Fellow and the 2021–2022 ASA Science Policy fellow. I won the Significance Young Statisticians Writing Competition in 2014, received the ASA Wray Jackson Smith Scholarship in 2015, and won the professional category of the ASA GSS Data Challenge in 2016 with Chris Eshleman and Rob Trangucci.
These opportunities provided recognition far beyond the ASA community. For example, my work for the Significance competition was covered by The New York Times, and our work for the data challenge was covered by Governing Magazine.
The ASA has provided many meaningful volunteer opportunities. For instance, I was a judge for the ASA GSS Data Challenge in 2017, the ASA Fall Data Challenge in 2020, and the ASA/WSS Data Visualization Poster Competition in 2022. For these and similar efforts at George Mason University, I was an inaugural recipient of the Trailblazer Award from the George Mason University CEC Office of Diversity, Outreach, and Inclusive Learning in 2022, and I received the United Bank Presidential Medal for Faculty Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion in 2023.
I earned my PhD in statistics from Columbia University in 2020, where Shaw-Hwa Lo and Andrew Gelman advised me. I spent my final year as a GSAS Teaching Scholar, creating and teaching the course Statistics for Activists.
I then served as the 2020–2021 ASA Science Policy Fellow under the guidance of ASA Director of Science Policy Steve Pierson. Among many incredible experiences, I conducted research on US Census operations and voting by mail (see “What Would Happen if the Deadline for the 2020 Census Data Collection Operation Changed? Estimates of Apportionment of the House of Representatives and Distribution of Federal Medicaid Funding Under Different Deadlines” and “Does Voting by Mail Increase Fraud? Estimating the Change in Reported Voter Fraud when States Switch to Elections by Mail”) and helped draft amicus briefs for consideration by the Supreme Court.
I also participated in an independent review of the 2020 Census with Paul Biemer and Joe Salvo, overseen by the ASA Census Quality Indicators Taskforce. This and related work led to a series of publications (i.e., “What Protects the Autonomy of the Federal Statistical Agencies? An Assessment of the Procedures in Place to Protect the Independence and Objectivity of Official US Statistics,” “Safeguarding Facts in an Era of Disinformation: The Case for Independently Monitoring the US Statistical System,” and “Bolstering Education Statistics to Serve the Nation”) and interviews (i.e., SciLine, HuffPost, and a Reddit “Ask Me Anything”).
In 2021, I joined the department of statistics at George Mason University, where I continue to work with the ASA Office of Science Policy. We just released a report on the state of the federal statistical system (see coverage from The New York Times and Associated Press). I learned an incredible amount from coauthors Steve Pierson, Claire Bowen, Connie Citro, Nancy Potok, and Zachary Seeskin.
The report follows a century-old tradition in which ASA researchers independently evaluate the federal statistical system (e.g., “Government Statistics: A Report of the Committee on Government Statistics and Information Services Sponsored by the American Statistical Association and the Social Science Research Council” and “Maintaining the Professional Integrity of Federal Statistics: A Report of the American Statisical Association—Federal Statistics Users’ Conference Committee on the Integrity of Federal Statistics”). Our report is unique in that we propose to monitor the system proactively. In other words, just as civil engineers monitor America’s physical infrastructure, we aim to monitor America’s data infrastructure, focusing on the federal statistical system.
I am the current president of the Washington Statistical Society, the largest ASA chapter. Now is a particularly exciting time to be a member as we prepare for our 100th anniversary. I am grateful to be part of such a welcoming and distinguished group of scholars. While the WSS has several important responsibilities, I am particularly interested in engaging the many small groups of statisticians who work throughout the federal statistical system, as well as K–12 teachers in the DMV area.
Reflection has given me the opportunity to remind myself how lucky I am to belong to an incredible community. Like most, I am indebted to a lengthy line of mentors and supporters throughout my journey, including Ray Majewski, Leslie Hirsch, Shaw-Hwa Lo, Tian Zheng, Andrew Gelman, Michael Sobel, Steve Pierson, Ron Wasserstein, Jiayang Sun, Bill Rosenberger, and Anand Vidyashankar.
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