Editors’ Letter—Vol. 36, No. 2

Dear CHANCE Colleagues,

We are excited to introduce several new features and guarantee this issue of CHANCE has something for every reader. We want to continue this momentum to promote all aspects of data science and statistics. If there is a topic you would like to read about in CHANCE, please let us know at chancemag.editor@gmail.com.

Our highlighted article for this issue is by John L. Eltinge of the U.S. Census Bureau. John gave the Deming Lecture at the 2018 Joint Statistical Meetings, titled “Improving the Quality and Value of Statistical Information: 14 Questions on Management.” The Deming Lecture was established by the American Statistical Association (ASA) “to honor the accomplishments of W. Edwards Deming, recognize the accomplishments of the awardee, and enhance the awareness among the statistical community of the scope and importance of Deming’s contributions.” In his article, John revisits Deming’s framework on management and poses questions to show its relevance to modern statistical organizations and data producers.

We have a contribution from Robert Lund, who participated in the 2022 IDEA Forum that was highlighted in the previous issue of CHANCE. Robert and his co-author Xueheng Shi discuss changepoint approaches used in climatology and describe innovative methods for detecting them and for analyzing relevant data. The authors also issue a call to action for statisticians to get involved in addressing problems in climatology.

Unfortunately, it is all too often that we lose friends and colleagues. The published obituaries often do not adequately convey the magnitude of a loss. When a valued colleague dies, we want to provide a way to celebrate them and their impact on our profession by providing remembrances from family, friends, and colleagues. The first of these articles appears in this issue, celebrating the life of Ed Nevius. We hope to have a remembrance of Jerome Sacks in the next issue.

As always, we welcome ideas and submissions from our readers, especially, in this case, to celebrate the legacies of our colleagues.

Robert A. Tumasian III, who will earn his PhD later this spring, explores justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) principles in his CHANCE article “Toward Enhancing Clinical Trial Diversity.” Robert has been very active in the JEDI Outreach Group. In this article, he combines his commitment to JEDI with his professional interest in clinical trials. Like Robert Lund and Xueheng Shi, he also offers a call for action and provides ways to do so.

We are excited about the breadth of topics covered by the columns in this issue.

We invite you to add to your TBR (to be read) list with the Book Reviews, where Christian Robert reviews three books. Be sure to read his review of Bayesian Probability for Babies!

Howard Wainer also has a book review in his column, the first in a series focusing on historical figures in data and information visualization. Appropriately, he begins with Florence Nightingale.

For our readers who are interested in education, Amanda Ellis describes how educators can help students connect the material they learn in their coursework with skills they need to be successful in the workforce.

In our inaugural Editors’ Letter, we promised to introduce new columns, and we have two of them in this issue. One is “History Chronicles,” from co-editors Penny Reynolds and Chaitra Nagaraja, and the other is “One Thing About…” by ASA Executive Director Ron Wasserstein. The editors share their goals for the columns, so read on to learn about how you can contribute.

We end with a final call to action for our creative readers: an invitation to participate in our first CHANCE contest. The challenge is to create generative works of art and is described in the article “Pixel by Pixel: The Art of CHANCE.” There are categories for middle and high school students, undergraduate students, graduate students, and professionals. Winning submissions will be published in the November issue of CHANCE, and all submissions will be featured on the CHANCE website. Channel your inner artist and see the article for details.

Wendy Martinez and Donna LaLonde

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