Statistics Serving Society

About 

The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) presents Statistics Serving Society ( S3 ), a series of forums to honor the memory of Professor Ingram Olkin.  Each forum focuses on a current societal issue that might benefit from new or renewed attention from the statistical community. The S3 Forums aim to bring the latest innovations in statistical methodology and data science into new research and public policy collaborations, working to accelerate the development of innovative approaches that impact societal problems. As the Forum will be the first time a particular group of experts will be gathered together to consider an issue, new energy and synergy is expected to produce a flurry of new ideas and approaches.

Goals for the S3 Ingram Olkin Forums:

  • Providing statisticians with an understanding of the societal problems and stimulating their interest in working on related statistical issues.
  • Developing an agenda of statistical action items that are needed to better inform public policy and to generate reliable evidence that can be used to mitigate the problem. For example, action items might focus on data availability, data collection methods, causal inference, data science, designed and natural experiments, quality control, trend assessments, and the evaluation of preventative and restorative initiatives.
  • Leading to new collaborations among statisticians and those working to understand and mitigate the problem.
  • Leading to funded grant proposals that works to bring the detailed action items to life.

S3 Ingram Olkin Forums are intended to be participatory. In every forum, all participants will have a role such as discussant, moderator, recorder or note taker. There will be discussion time at each session and roundtable discussions at the end of each day, and a final time before the forum closes for reporting, syntheses, and writing.

Upcoming S3 Forum Topics

Previous S3 Forums    

Gun Violence - The Statistical Issues

May 10 & 17, 2024 - IOF S3 Forum: Statistical Issues on Gun Violence Part 2 - News: "Ingram Olkin Forum on Gun Violence Part 2: Experts Return for Two-Day Forum" (Program)

June, 26 and 27, 2019 - IOF S3 Forum: Statistical Issues on Gun Violence - News : "Statisticians Focus on Data Related to Gun Violence at Inaugural Ingram Olkin Forum", (Program)

White Paper: "A Call for Statisticians to Engage in Gun Violence Research" (Ridgeway, Greg, Rosenberger, James and Xue, Lingzhou - October, 2020)

Publication: Greg Ridgeway, James L. Rosenberger & Lingzhou Xue (2021) "Statisticians Engage in Gun Violence Research", Statistics and Public Policy, 8:1, 73-79, DOI: 10.1080/2330443X.2021.1978354

IOF Committee liaison, Lingzhou Xue & James Rosenberger

Police Use of Force

April 14, 2025 - Findings from Ingram Olkin Forum on Statistical Analysis of Police Use of Force  Panelists: Dr. Gregory Lanzalotto, PhD Candidate, University of Pennsylvania Wharton School; Dr. Elizabeth Brault, Assistant Professor, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Merrimack College; Dr. Cristian Allen, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Wartburg College; and Dr. Jennifer Bourgeois, Postdoctoral Fellow, Center for Justice Research, Texas Southern University. Moderator: Dr. Claire Kelling, Assistant Professor of Statistics, Mathematics and Statistics Department at Carleton College

November 9-10, 2023 - In-Person Workshop at Carleton College News: "Groundbreaking IOF Workshop Unveils Statistical Challenges in Analyzing Police Use of Force" (Event Page)

June 4, 2021 - News:"Ingram Olkin Forum Examines Analyses of Data Related to Police Use of Force" (Program)

IOF Committee liaison, Claire Kelling

Publications from all Police Use of Force forums:

Bourgeois, J. W., Haensch, A., Kher, S., Knox, D., Lanzalotto, G., & Wong, T. A. (2024). How to Use Causal Inference to Study Use of Force. CHANCE, 37(4), 6–10. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2024.2434435

Brault, E. E., Kelling, C., Bourgeois, J. W., Taheri, S. A., Jones, A., Charles, C., … Banks, D. (2024). Toward Standardization of Police Use of Force Data. CHANCE, 37(4), 24–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2024.2434438 

Kelling, C. (2024). Statisticians Address Analysis of Police Use of Force. CHANCE, 37(4), 4–5. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2024.2434432

Kelling, C., Allen, C., Brault, E. E., & Matos, P. (2024). Issues in the Spatial Analysis of Police Use of Force Data. CHANCE, 37(4), 11–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2024.2434436

Shah, T., Allen, C., Ibrahim, A., Kefalas, H., & Stevens, B. (2024). The Use of Unstructured Data to Study Police Use of Force. CHANCE, 37(4), 18–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/09332480.2024.2434437

Statistical Methods for Combatting Human Trafficking

March 15, 2023 - Online Forum:"Ingram Olkin Forum: Statistical Methods for Combatting Human Trafficking" (Event Page)

IOF Committee liaison, David Banks

Advancing Demographic Equity with Privacy Preserving Methodologies

November 1, 2022 - "IOF Committee Kicks Off Preliminary Webinar on Advancing Demographic Equity with Privacy" (Program)

January 12-13, 2023 - In-Person Workshop Forum: Advancing Demographic Equity with Privacy Preserving Methodologies (Event page)

IOF Committee liaisons, David Banks and Wendy Martinez

COVID and the Schools: Modeling Openings, Closings, and Learning Loss

December 16, 2020 - News: "Ingram Olkin Forum Focuses on Data and Models for Opening and Closing Schools and Learning Loss" (Program)

IOF Committee liaison, Betsy Becker

Algorithmic Fairness and Social Justice

September 25, 2020 - News: "Insights Shared Regarding Algorithmic Fairness in Social Contexts" (Program)

IOF Committee liaison, Claire Kelling

Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions

IOF Committee liaision, Nancy Flournoy

Publications from all Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions forums:

Flournoy, N. (2023). The NISS Ingram Olkin Forum on Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions. Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, 15(1), 92–93. https://doi.org/10.1080/19466315.2022.2152090

Van Lancker, K., Tarima, S., Bartlett, J., Bauer, M., Bharani-Dharan, B., Bretz, F., … Cro, S. (2022). Estimands and their Estimators for Clinical Trials Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Report from the NISS Ingram Olkin Forum Series on Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions. Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, 15(1), 94–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/19466315.2022.2094459 PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2202.03531 

Van Lancker, K., Tarima, S., Bartlett, J., Bauer, M., Bharani-Dharan, B., Bretz, F., … Cro, S. (2023). Rejoinder: Estimands and their Estimators for Clinical Trials Impacted by the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Report from the NISS Ingram Olkin Forum Series on Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions. Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, 15(1), 119–124. https://doi.org/10.1080/19466315.2022.2162958

Calderazzo, S., Tarima, S., Reid, C., Flournoy, N., Friede, T., Geller, N., … Zohar, S. (2023). Coping with Information Loss and the Use of Auxiliary Sources of Data: A Report from the NISS Ingram Olkin Forum Series on Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions. Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, 16(2), 141–157. https://doi.org/10.1080/19466315.2023.2211023 PDF: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.11238

Cornelia Ursula Kunz, Sergey Tarima, Gary L. Rosner, Richard Emsley, Madeline Bauer, Christopher Jennison, James L. Rosenberger, Nigel Stallard, Sarah Zohar & Nancy Flournoy (19 Mar 2024): Bayesian and Frequentist Approaches to Rescuing Disrupted Trials: A Report from the NISS Ingram Olkin Forum Series on Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions, Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, DOI: 10.1080/19466315.2024.2313986 PDF: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19466315.2024.2313986 

S3 Forum Committee:

Wendy Martinez (Chair), U.S. Census Bureau 
David S. Matteson, National Institute of Statistical Sciences
David L. Banks, Duke University
Claire Kelling, Carleton College
Henry Wynn, London School of Economics
Dibyen Majumdar, Institute of Mathematical and Statistical Innovation (IMSI)
Shili Lin, Ohio State University
Ariel Aloe, University of Iowa
Megan Glenn (ex officio), National Institute of Statistical Sciences
Randy Freret (ex officio), National Institute of Statistical Sciences

Founding Members of the Ingram Olkin Forum:

Jerry Sacks, NISS Director Emeritus
Nancy Flournoy, University of Missouri
Amanda Golbeck, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences
Larry Hedges, North Western University
Jon Kettenring, Drew University
Sally Morton, Arizona State University
Julia Olkin, California State University, East Bay
Jim Rosenberger, NISS Director Emeritus, Pennsylvania State University Emeritus Professor
Allan Sampson (1945-2021), University of Pittsburgh
Christopher Schmid, Brown University
Daniel Solomon, North Carolina State University

 

About the NISS CoLab

The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS), an independent non-profit research organization founded in 1990 by the ASA, IBS, IMS, the triangle universities, and others, is excited to announce the launch of the NISS Collaboratory (CoLab). This new initiative will host collaborative events and activities, bringing together NISS Affiliates and partner institutions to work on high-impact cross-disciplinary and cross-sector research. NISS identifies, seeds, catalyzes, and fosters such research in the statistical and data sciences, serving as a neutral, objective expert in delivering critical scientific and public policy research to academia, industry, and government.

CoLab aims to strengthen these efforts by enhancing collaboration and innovation across diverse fields:

Full details are available on the NISS CoLab page: https://www.niss.org/CoLab