Research Articles

Last updated: 2022-07-23

My research falls under three broad themes: statistics and data science education, statistical modeling, and consulting.

Statistics and data science education

“Data Science in 2020: Computing, Curricula, and Challenges for the Next 10 Years”. Journal of Statistics Education.

• In this paper, my co-authors (Catie Baker and Rebecca Gasper) and I explore the findings from a survey of data science instructors and programs in the United States. We explore current trends and practices, as well as challenges instructors face while developing new data science courses and programs. We also discuss how data science courses are a natural extension of the need to better incorporate computing concepts in the statistics curriculum, and propose areas for future growth.

“The State of Statistics Education Research in Client Disciplines: Themes and Trends Across the University” (2019). Journal of Statistics Education.

• This paper summarizes current trends in statistics education research in non-statistical disciplines such as nursing, psychology, biology, and business. Themes that are prevalent in statistics education journals such as simulation-based inference, incorporating data science and modern statistical methods, and teaching with new technology are, for the most part, absent from the literature beyond statistics. Instead, statistics educators and current research in outside disciplines are more concerned about student performance, statistics anxiety, and classroom pedagogy. Based on this, I believe that there is still much to be done to connect communities of statistics educators across the university.

“Life on an Island: Using Peer Consulting in Applied Statistics Courses” (2017). CHANCE: Teaching Statistics in the Health Sciences column.

• In this paper I discussed several practical models for introducing student-to-student, or peer consulting into a statistics program. Peer consulting is a great way to get students engaged in the statistical process, through either working with a consultant to complete an investigative project or serving as a consultant themselves. Through these projects students learned valuable professional and interpersonal skills not typically taught in the statistics classroom.

“Developing a First-Year Seminar Course in Statistics and Data Science” (2016), International Association of Statistics Educators Roundtable Conference Proceedings.

• This paper details the development of CORE 100: Life in the Data Deluge. This course was a first-year seminar-style course about the implications of life in the era of big data. CORE 100 was taught in Fall 2016 at Xavier University. Plans to evaluate and further refine the course were shelved after I took a position at Creighton the following year.

Spatial statistics and statistical modeling

During my PhD work, I developed a kriging model for spatially correlated proportional data using the beta-binomial distribution. Despite the relative mathematical simplicity of the model, it was shown to outperform other options in terms of predictive accuracy.

Articles related to this work include:

“Emerging patterns in multi-sourced data modeling uncertainty” (2016) Spatial Statistics.

• Joint work with Alexander Kolovos, Lynette Smith, Sarah Gengler, and Hwa-Lung Yu

“Beta-Binomial Kriging: An Improved Model for Spatial Rates” (2015) Procedia Environmental Sciences.

• Joint work with David Marx (published as “Aimee Schwab”)

Since then, I have shifted focus to generalized linear mixed models with a spatial correlation structure, and attempts to improve computational efficiency without sacrificing accuracy. Most recently, Creighton graduate Mark May (2020) completed several simulation studies in this area, and presented his results at the Joint Statistical Meetings.

Statistical consulting

A significant part of my research time is devoted to statistical consulting. Some papers I’ve served as a statistical consultant or co-PI on include:

• Patricia Soto, India A. Claflin, Alyssa L. Bursott, Aimee D. Schwab-McCoy & Jason C. Bartz (2020) “Cellular prion protein gene polymorphisms linked to differential scrapie susceptibility correlate with distinct residue connectivity between secondary structure elements”, Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics, DOI: 10.1080/07391102.2019.1708794

• Reo J.F. Jones, Margaret M. Hansen, Mahmoud Kaddoura, Aimee Schwab-McCoy & Kirsten Tocchini (2018) “The incidence of nursing students’ perceived stress and burnout levels at a private university in California”, Journal of Nursing Education and Practice, DOI: 10.5430/jnep.v8n10p138