Data for Good: The Year in Review and 2025 Challenge Winners

The year 2025 saw many changes and challenges for the scientific community in the United States—with wider effects around the world—resulting from the loss of federal funding, staffing reductions, and the elimination or reduction of critical data resources in all areas. Statisticians and data scientists have been at the eye of the storm, affected in multiple ways in all sectors. However, the analytic community has risen to the challenge and carried on our work of using statistical science for the benefit of all.

At the start of each year, I set out a challenge list of important areas for research and exploration in Data for Good. In the 11 months since writing the list for 2025, so much has changed, yet the challenges remain valid: preserving and protecting data sources and developing new ones; defending statisticians and data scientists and our work; and managing the explosive growth of AI in ways that do the most to help people, communities, and the world.

While the future remains uncertain, we can be confident that Data for Good advocates will continue to make science a powerful source of innovation and support for the benefit of all.

I am proud to honor the following people and programs meeting the challenges of today to lead us toward a brighter tomorrow:

• Biostatistics Challenge: AI and Intelligent Systems in Biostatistics. This year’s award recognizes the AI4Casting Hub at the University of Guelph, led by Monica Cojocaru. The hub brings together an interdisciplinary team of collaborators developing AI applications in public health (e.g., a tool for tracking measles outbreaks). It’s also noteworthy that the hub partners with industry, government agencies in Canada and the US, and independent research consortiums such as the Hubverse.
• Environmental Advocacy: Analytics for Healthier Oceans. I am pleased to recognize Healthy Rivers – Healthy Oceans, a program of the United Nations Department of Environmental Affairs. Part of the UN Global Water Partnership, HRHO supports many of the UN’s sustainable development goals by taking a “source-to-sea” approach, focusing on the vital connection between the health of rivers to the oceans into which they flow. The program supports monitoring of fresh and marine ecosystems and the development of machine learning and AI tools to guide policy.
• Human Rights Challenge: Statisticians at Risk. When I wrote the 2025 Challenge List, I was thinking about problems we have seen in other countries. This year, however, has proven different, with statisticians throughout the United States federal data system facing mass firings and loss of funding. One outstanding defender of both science and scientists has been Friends of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which has led the way with advocacy, information, and action to support statisticians at risk.
• Organization and Infrastructure Challenge. In the ASA President’s Address at JSM, Ji-Hyun Lee raised concerns about the growing digital divide that threatens to create a world of haves and have nots in data, analytics, and AI. The Organization and Infrastructure Challenge called for the development of open-source tools to address this concern. From among many outstanding efforts, the Swiss AI Initiative with its open AI platform Apertus is the honoree this year.
• Data Challenge. This challenge focused on perhaps the most important issue in analytics today: the resiliency and hardening of critically important data sets. Responding to unprecedented attacks on all aspects of data infrastructure and usage, statisticians and data scientists have risen to the challenge in many ways. Through it all, the Data Rescue Project has been at the center of the storm, working across disciplines and organizations to preserve the endangered federal data ecosystem. Launched in February of 2025, led by Lynda Kellam and Sebastian Majstorovic, and empowered by more than 500 volunteers, the Data Rescue Project is one of the most powerful and inspiring stories we have ever seen. It is an honor to recognize them as the 2025 Data for Good Challenge honoree for data.

This year has been a year of inflection, changing directions in the support, use, and future of science in all areas. The outstanding response of the analytic community has been a counter-inflection, changing the course of events toward a brighter future. Now, at the end of the year, I would like to thank the many people who make this monthly column possible and the readers for your support in our efforts.

Getting Involved

Opportunities for this month include getting ready for 2026 ASA conferences. Joint Statistical Meetings topic-contributed session proposals are due by December 10 and contributed abstract submissions by February 2. Also, the Symposium on Data Science and Statistics, taking place April 28 – May 1, is accepting panel proposals through December 10 and lightning submissions through February 5. Both are great opportunities to share your work in Data for Good with a wider audience.