ECSSN and NZSA October Webinar: An academic journey in pursuing the art of statistics

Statistics can be considered both an art and a science.

 The science of statistics is concerned with the mathematical, computational, or formal methods to abstract procedures or proofs related to extracting targetted information from theoretical or empirical data. This scientific approach is characterized by rigor, precision, and exactness, ensuring that statistical analyses and conclusions are based on sound principles and valid methodologies.

 The art of statistics involves the creative and interpretive elements of working with data. It includes the human judgement, intuition, and understanding in the statistical process or communication that ultimately feeds in as input for conducting the "science". Concrete examples include making (informed) decisions for data pre-processing, defining data structure for study designs, and interpretation of the statistical results.

 In practice, we require both the art and science of statistics to be effective. However, research and teaching of statistics is skewed towards the science, and there is little formal or systematic training for the art of statistics. In this talk, Emi will share her academic journey and demonstrate some of her research that leans towards the art of statistics, in particular, through reforming the approach to statistical software as cognitive tools that enable the science.

Biography

Dr. Emi Tanaka is a Senior Lecturer in Statistics at the Biological Data Science Institute (and the Research School of Finance, Actuarial Studies and Statistics) at the Australian National University. Her primary interest is to develop impactful methods and tools that can be readily used by practitioners. She interfaces across multiple disciplines to bridge statistical concepts and findings to a broad range of individuals. To this end, she has developed numerous open-source tools, primarily as R-packages, and resources aimed at making statistical methods accessible to a diverse audience. Emi demonstrates a proactive approach to community development and education through her involvement in the branches of the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA) and other committees. She is the current Vice-President of the SSA Vic & Tas and a council member of the International Biometrics Society Australasian Region. Her contributions are recognised with the SSA Distinguished Presenter's Award, SSA President’s Award for Leadership in Statistics, and being featured in the list of 60 prominent Australian statisticians in the Significance magazine.