Dear CHANCE Colleagues,

Welcome to a new year of CHANCE! We had a lot of fun putting together issues in 2023, and we are looking forward to another exceptional year.

As readers might recall, the first issue of CHANCE each year showcases articles from the American Statistical Association’s IDEA Forum: Influencing Discovery Exploration and Action, which focuses on topics of importance to the world community and how statisticians must contribute. The 2023 IDEA Forum, which was held in conjunction with the November ASA Board of Directors meeting, focused on the challenges and opportunities of open science. As the introductory article by Dionne Price and Donna LaLonde states, “Open science promotes transparency by making research data, methodologies, and analysis techniques openly available for scrutiny and replication by other researchers.” Achieving the pillars of open science is foundational to realizing the ASA’s vision of “a world that relies on data and statistical thinking to drive discovery and inform decisions.” See their article for an introduction to related IDEA Forum articles in this issue.

There are also three regular articles. The first is by researchers at the University of Virginia Biocomplexity Institute titled “Creating a Household Living Budget Using Publicly Available Data: A 21st Century Census Curated Data Enterprise Use Case.” The authors describe an approach that integrates multiple data sources and uses stakeholder requests and questions to “provide the context for the creation of statistical products.” They set the stage through use cases.

This is followed by “Letter to a Young Statistician: On ‘Student’ and the Lanarkshire Milk Experiment” by Stephen T. Ziliak. This is a fascinating article about the value of learning our history and “why we need history of science to inform the present.” Many of the ideas he discusses relate to the IDEA Forum theme of open science.

Next, we have a memorial article celebrating our colleague and friend Nozer Singpurwalla, who passed away on July 22, 2022. Singpurwalla had a profound impact on many lives and in many ways, as you will see from the heartfelt contributions included in the memorial.

There are two column articles in this issue. Featured in the History Chronicles is the first of what we hope will be a series of interviews with statisticians still making history. Last month, Penny Reynolds spoke with Rosemary Bailey, professor of mathematics and statistics at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and a giant in the field of statistical design of experiments. Our interview covered her time at Oxford, Edinburgh, and Rothamsted and introduced us to some of the notable personalities she encountered. The column shares a lively discussion about the problems that sadly and maddeningly persist in the design and analysis of experiments. We hope you enjoy it.

The One Thing About… column discusses the importance of ethics in the new world of expanding availability of AI applications and tools. It contains practical information for data science and statisticians in the context of the ASA’s Ethical Guidelines for Statistical Practice.

As always, we want to hear from our readers! Please send your ideas for special issues to chancemag.editor@gmail.com. We welcome submissions from you and your colleagues. So, keep reading CHANCE and consider making a submission!

Wendy Martinez
Donna LaLonde

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