ERIC VANCE
Laboratory of Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis (LISA)
Virginia Tech, Department of Statistics
“LISA 2020: Creating a Network of Statistical Collaboration Laboratories”
ABSTRACT:
To increase the global impact of statistics and make the profession more useful for solving real-world problems, LISA—The Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Statistical Analysis at Virginia Tech—is partnering with universities and individuals around the world to create a network of 20 new statistical collaboration laboratories in developing countries by 2020.
LISA and its partners will educate and train statisticians from developing countries to communicate and collaborate with non-statisticians and then support these statisticians to create statistical collaboration laboratories in their home countries to help researchers, government officials, local industries, and NGOs apply statistical thinking and data science to make better decisions through data. At LISA and elsewhere, we will unlock the collaborative potential of technically sound statisticians who will in turn unlock the research potential of their collaborators and teach other statisticians to do the same. These local research collaborations, now with the power of statistical thinking and data science open to them, will be key to improving human welfare worldwide.
This talk will focus on the steps of this program, called “LISA 2020”, including how LISA trains statisticians to become interdisciplinary collaborators, how statistical collaboration laboratories create knowledge and serve the mission of land grant universities, and how the LISA 2020 mentoring network we are building will assist statisticians in developing countries to enable and accelerate research.
