Department of Statistics
The department in the media
Find our sampling of media coverage featuring the Department of Statistics' research and staff below.
Can you combine a passion for sports and statistics into your career?
New Zealand Herald, 3 July 2011
Meet Bobby Willcox, a PhD student in the Department of Statistics and performance analyst for the Silver Ferns.
Bobby Willcox gets to watch every ANZ game at least three times. She did her project on the Silver Ferns as part of her MSc in Statistics and has not looked back since. Bobby plays a vital role in analyzing the strategies of the game and identifying playing styles within each position- both the Ferns and their opponents. In every game, she gets the best seat next to the Silver Fern coaches whilst she analyses real time data from the games.
“I guess I am proof that you if you study statistics you don’t have to be a maths teacher- you can end up sitting on the sidelines at a netball world championships” says Bobby Willcox.
To date, she’s analysed four major tournaments and loves what she does. Read more how Bobby’s statistical skills are giving an edge to the Silver Ferns.
Stats Chat investigates the uses and abuses of statistics in the media
Radio New Zealand Mediawatch, 19 June 2011
The Department of Statistics has set up its own blog, StatsChat to help improve statistical literacy, scrutinise facts and figures used in the media and create awareness of misleading statistical information. Stats Chat also aims to provide a valuable archive of resources for the general public.
Rachel Cunliffe, co-founder of StatsChat and a former graduate of The University of Auckland said that the blog would be especially relevant this year as "we will be seeing multiple polls coming out in the election...and helping people to understand those issues better would be the role of the blog."
The Department of Statistics will be contributing regularly to the blog but Rachel hopes that the public will also add their comments and contributions.
To find out more about the StatsChat and the importance of statistical scrutiny in the media, listen to Mediawatch's interview with Rachel on 19 June 2011. The interview begins 15 minutes from the start of the programme.
Can you trust 'NZ's most trusted' list?
The New Zealand Herald, 21 June 2011
Reader’s Digest's poll uncovers surprising results after it changed the way it asked some of its key questions in its annual survey of the “most trusted New Zealanders”. This throws up some questions on how much readers, without an understanding how statistics can be collected, can trust the accuracy of surveys.
Associate Professor David Scott of the Department of Statistics said that “the newer methodology would probably be emphasizing a different type of person”, hence the surprising results.
Read more about how these statistics were collected from the New Zealand Herald website.
Silver Ferns rely on Bobby's statistical analysis skills to pursue gold
Auckland City Harbour News, 6 May 2011
Bobby Willcox plays a vital role in the Silver Ferns - she gets to combine her love for numbers together with her interest in netball to assist coaches in selecting teams and improving player performance. Netball New Zealand high performance director Tracey Fear describes Bobby as a “key member of the national programme. Selectors can see some real, hard statistics which add another dimension to the selection process.”
The journey for Bobby so far has been exciting; Bobby travelled to two Commonwealth Games and one world championship. And there is the promise of another one taking place later this year.
To read more about how Bobby Willcox uses her statistical skills to assist the Silver Ferns, see the full story printed in the Auckland City Harbour News, 6 May 2011.
The Department of Statistics' CensusAtSchool survey reveals: Kids fear ABs will choke in final
The New Zealand Herald, 21 June 2011
CensusAtSchool, an online educational survey run by the Department of Statistics, reveal that 83% of students in schools across the country think that the All Blacks will make it to the Rugby World Cup final, but only 41% believe that they will actually win it.
Rachel Cunliffe, a graduate of The University of Auckland and now a co-editor of the CensusAtSchool initiative, found that the children's results were "a bit of a surprise".
These results were in contrast to a survey done among their parents, which reveal that the adults were a lot more optimistic about the All Blacks chances in this year's World Cup.
Read more about the results of the CensusAtSchool survey on the NZ Herald website.
Kiwi kids take part in census
TV3 News, Wednesday 4 May 2011
"This year's census may have been cancelled due to the Christchurch earthquake, but some young Kiwis are taking part in a census of their own."
To see the news coverage of Census AtSchool online, please click here to go to the TV3 News website.
International children's census next week
TV3 News, Tuesday 26 April 2011
"CensusAtSchool - run by Auckland University's Department of Statistics, the Ministry of Education and Statistics New Zealand - was designed to teach students the value of statistics in everyday life, census coordinator Rachel Cunliffe said."
Accidental success of an anarchist
North & South, February 2011
"West Auckland statistician Ross Ihaka says he’s 'an anarchist from way back'. And that would seem to be a damn fine trait: the free dataanalysis software Ihaka and his Canadian co-creator let loose on the internet in 1996 has taken the world by storm."
Anthony Doesburg: Crunching the numbers more vital than ever - Statisticians well-placed in job market as demand for data keeps growing
New Zealand Herald, 1 November 2010
"David Scott doesn't take offence when he hears the words "lies, damned lies and statistics". That might be a bit surprising since number crunching is his job - he is associate professor of statistics at the University of Auckland. "It's just something we have to live with," says Scott. "But to our mind, statistics has got the runs on the board. It's proved itself to be useful in all sorts of areas."
Annual awards source of pride
New Zealand Herald, 27 October 2010
"It's time for the annual New Zealand Open Source Awards, and the 31 finalists show an extraordinary range of innovation and collaboration. Among the three nominations for best open source project are: SilverStripe, a New Zealand-made content management system that has been downloaded more than 325,000 times globally in less than four years; Kete, a digital library project, and R, a programming language and software environment that has become the lingua franca for statistical computing and graphics."
World-leading statistics education
NZIMA Images, October 2010
"The only talk at the Royal Statistical Society’s (RSS) World Statistics Day event in London on October 20 will be given by Professor Chris Wild, Dr Maxine Pfannkuch and Matt Regan, all from the University of Auckland. The RSS says the paper 'is set to transform the international landscape of statistical education'. Jenny Rankine spoke with them."
Read the full article:
NZIMA Images October 2010 (464 KB PDF)
Rock star of the number crunchers
Mana , August-September 2010
"For most of us, R is the 18th letter of the alphabet, or the label attached to adult movies. But for many of the world's best-known and biggest companies, like Google, Pfizer, Shell, Facebook and Microsoft, R is a must-have software package that has radically changed the way they wrangle data."
Read the full article:
Mana, August/September 2010 (2.9 MB PDF)
The story of R: a statistical tale with a twist
Computerworld, 23 July 2010
"Next month the creators of R will receive the inaugrual Statistical Computing and Graphics Award from the American Statistical Association. It will be further recognition for Associate Professor Ross Ihaka who won the Pickering Medal in 2008. So what is R, how was it created, and why does it matter to so many in academia — and in business — around the world?"
NZ-developed R software exploited by US company: creator
Computerworld, 22 July 2010
"The co-creator of an internationally recognised statistical program called R claims a US company is exploiting the program’s open source licence."
Honours pinpoints career path in risk management
New Zealand Herald, 5 June 2010
"Anyone who needs or wants to look critically at numerical information and not be misled should learn more about statistics, says Professor Chris Triggs, Head of the Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland."
Academic unfazed by rock star status
New Zealand Herald, 10 January 2009
"As statistician Ross Ihaka was pottering among his tomatoes in Avondale yesterday, the influential New York Times was raving about the free, statistical computing and graphics language he developed."
Modelling and heart patients
NZIMA, November 2008
"A chance conference meeting in 2006 started a collaboration between statistician Ilze Ziedins...and Masters student William Chen, and [Auckland City Hospital] unit staff on a queuing model that could simulate the effects of operational changes on patient numbers."
Detecting gravitational waves from space
Marsden Fund Update, No 39, Aug 2007
"Using new statistical and computation techniques, Dr [Renate] Meyer [from the Department of Statistics at The University of Auckland], Professor Christensen and their students have demonstrated that the highly complex gravitational signals can be deciphered and understood."
Population genetics in the rat race
Marsden Fund Update, No 37, January 2007
"With the support of a Marsden grant and the Department of Conservation, a team led by Dr Rachel Fewster, from the Department of Statistics at The University of Auckland, has been studying the movements of rats among islands using population genetics."
For a list of people that you can contact at the Department of Statistics, please download the following pdf file:
Statisticians for journalists.pdf (474 KB PDF)
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