Mathematics Department, Student Colloquium Series
MASKS REQUIRED
PIZZA SERVED from 11:30 -11:55 in front of Hislop Family Auditorium
TALK STARTS AT 12:00 PM
“Lies, Damn Lies, and…Olympic Judging Systems”
Presented by
John W. Emerson
Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Statistics and Data Science – Yale University
Thursday, April 21, 2022
12:00 P.M. HOLMES HALL – 116 Hislop Family Auditorium
Abstract: This talk considers aspects of Olympic judging systems in two different sports, diving and figure skating. The former sport can boast of complete transparency, with the identities of the judges tied to scores available to the general public. The latter sport, in contrast, has struggled to evolve since the judging scandal of the Salt Lake City Olympic Games.
BIO: John W. Emerson is the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Statistics and Data Science. His primary interests are in computational statistics and graphics, and his applied work ranges from topics in sports statistics to bioinformatics, environmental statistics, and Big Data challenges. He teaches a range of undergraduate and graduate courses from “Introductory Data Analysis” to “Statistical Case Studies.” He is the author of several R packages including bcp (for Bayesian change point analysis), bigmemory and sister packages (towards a scalable solution for statistical computing with massive data), and gpairs (for generalized pairs plots). He has served in various leadership roles in several sections of the American Statistical Association. He misses international travel and loves to cook.