Steve Pierson is director of science policy for the American Statistical Association where he works to raise the profile of statistics in policymaking and advocates on the interests of statisticians. He was previously head of government relations at the American Physical Society and associate professor of physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Follow him on Twitter.
+ Full Transcript
Rosemary Pennington: Most of the time statisticians go about their work without much fanfare. They crunch numbers and interpret data in the hopes that the information will help people better understand their world. The work of statisticians can be helpful to policymakers and even influence their approach to problem-solving, that is when they know what the statistical research on the topic says. The intersection of policy and statistics is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories, where we explore the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics. I’m Rosemary Pennington. Stats and Stories is a production of Miami University’s departments of Statistics and Media, Journalism and Film, and the American Statistical Association. Joining me is regular panelist John Bailer, Chair of Miami’s Statistics Department. Richard Campbell is away today. Our guest is Steve Pierson. Pierson is the Director of Science Policy for the American Statistical Association, a position he’s held for the last twelve years. In that role, Pierson has worked to raise the profile of statistics as a discipline, as well as government statistics and statisticians nationally. As Director, he’s also advocated for the creation and maintenance of a robust data infrastructure. Steve thanks so much for being here.
Steven Pierson: My pleasure Rosemary.
Pennington: So, you got your Ph.D. in Physics, yes?
Pierson: That’s right.
Pennington: And you were a physics professor.
Pierson: I was.
Pennington: So how does a physics professor go from being in a classroom to becoming a professional statistics advocate?
Pierson: That is a good question. I long had kind of an interest in what I would do with my physics degree, I liked research, but I also was aware of what other physicists were doing as an undergrad and like Andrea Sakharov of the Soviet Union, so just kind of that broader vision of the world always appealed to me, and that remained an interest while I was doing my Ph.D. And I kind of just grew more intense, and then as I did my post-doc at the naval research lab in Washington D.C. where I got to kind of see more closely by interacting with scientists who were working with congress or doing policy-related work. And, so I was a professor at Polytechnic Institute and kind of maintained this interest in the intersection of science and society. And when it came time to do a sabbatical, I had the good fortune to come and work for the physicists in Washington where I was a lobbyist. I mostly lobbied for more research money through the National Science Foundation, Department of Energy Health, and Science, and then after six years there I saw that the American Statistical Association was advertising, and fortunately, they hired me under the current executive director Ron Wasserstein. So that’s maybe a nutshell.
Bailer: So why did the ASA form a science policy position, the one that you’ve occupied now for these 12 years?
Pierson: So, my understanding is that they, you know they just saw that statisticians had an important voice to provide to policymakers. For what statistics provide and what statisticians bring to the table. So, I think there was a lot of talk about it and then in 2007 the board approved it and I was hired in 2008.
Bailer: So, what was the first project you worked on in this new position?
Pierson: Oh, my goodness.
Bailer: Sorry.
[Laughter]
Pierson: That’s- I’ll share a few. A couple of things, one I remember there was a movement around that time to get more scientists to be elected to public office. And so there was a workshop and I was trying to recruit for that, and while doing that I learned about a number of statisticians who served in a city council or on a county board and that was just really terrific to learn about statisticians that were engaged. So that’s one project and it really helped me connect. Another project was the 2009 Joint Statistical Meetings were in Washington D.C., so I organized with our scientific and public affairs committee two days of Hill visits for statisticians that were interested. And I think we had some 50 or 60 people doing outreach to the Hill, and one of the topics was just encouraging more statistics education. So, there’s a couple projects that stand out for me.
Pennington: How is this work met by policymakers when you’re taking statisticians to the Hill, right, or trying to get them otherwise engaged with the work of statisticians? How receptive are lawmakers or policy makers to this sort of outreach or this sort of advocacy?
Pierson: Rosemary, excellent question, because it’s kind of, it’s challenging, right? Because there’s a professional association for virtually any scientific discipline that you could think of, and they’re doing similar things, and you know so they take the meetings, they’re engaged but they’re so busy that they don’t often reach back and take you up on that offer. It does happen and it’s terrific when it does, and there’s more and more I think scientists on the Hill that might come in through like the AAAS fellowship program, so but I also feel like being with the American Statistical Association, you know, ASA is the oldest scientific association in the U.S., so I feel like you know that that is really helpful. So yes, there’s a receptivity, but as you can imagine staffers are just besieged by all kinds of meeting requests and you know. On the House side in a personal office, one staffer could be handling six or seven major issues. It could be veterans, it could be labor, or it could be health or any number of really weighty topics, so, there’s not a lot of time for them to reach out to scientists, you know, of any discipline.
Bailer: Have you found any of the staffers reaching out to you? I mean I would think that would be one of the ways that you might see some of the impacts of your work, is that they’re starting to say oh I’ve got this question about this statistical issue, I’ll think of the ASA and I’ll think of Steve.
Pierson: It doesn’t happen as often as I’d like, although that’s part of my work is just reaching out more and connecting our members. So just you know over the last year we’ve had interactions with the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, and then on the Senate side, it’s the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee. And they’re working on the forensic science bill, a bill to address you know, to address the various gaps in the science underlined the various disciplines in forensic science, and so ASA president Karen Kafadar- actually she’s done a Stats and Stories with you all, she was asked to testify last Fall and then there’s been some follow up discussions on that. So, they do reach out for that, for the statistical perspective. There was also a case where outreach actually was first to a statistician and then to the ASA, which I think it’s terrific to have those direct engagements and the case was the office of Senator Wyden who’s working on an election integrity bill to make voting more reliable and to improve the counting of the votes, and they had already been in touch with the University of California Berkley statistician Philip Stark to learn more about his methods of risk-limiting audits, which the ASA has endorsed, maybe while you were on the board John, and then they reached out to the ASA looking for ASA’s endorsement. So, it’s really encouraging when an office would like ASA’s endorsement of a bill.
Pennington: You mentioned sort of the challenges of reaching out to lawmakers or getting people and their staffs connected with the work of statisticians. Are there other obstacles or challenges that you’ve faced in this work, particularly when it comes to sort of raising the profile of statistics?
Pierson: I just think, Rosemary, of the intense competition for their time, you know? Over the past year and a half, we’ve been trying to get some attention to the issues being faced by the National Center for Education Statistics, and they are very understaffed, To put some numbers on that they have- as of February they have 88 staffed for a $264 million budget. So that is an average of $3 million per person and that is ten times more than the other federal statistical agencies, which means they are contracting out, and obviously, we rely on contractors heavily but that’s kind of an over-reliance, where we think you know they’d be much more efficient to have more in-house capacity and expertise. They’re also down 20% in purchasing power since about 2009, which means, you know, they just can’t keep up with all the demands. So, you know this is the National Center for Educational Statistics is the third-largest federal agency and the second oldest. And what I find really interesting is in 1867 when Congress set up the Department of Education the primary goal was to collect statistics on the state of education. So it’s kind of one of the founding missions of the Department of Education, and now here they are where- this has been going on a long time, but they’re at the point where they have to cut budgets, I’m sorry to cut programs. And as an example of one that is particularly relevant in the age of the Covid pandemic one of these surveys is the fast response survey system, which basically gives them an infrastructure where they can launch a survey quickly, and that’s going to be very important, especially as you get into the fall and the recovery phase and we need information to form that policy. And so finally to get back to that question Rosemary, this bill is funded- I’m sorry NCES is funded through the Labor, HHS, Health and Human Services and Education Department. It’s one of the biggest bills and you’ve got to compete with Labor, which is incredibly important right now, and Health and Human Services, and then just the broader education programs. And, you know, the NIH they have all kinds of disease groups coming to the Hill saying we need more research to help address cancer, or, in this case, coronavirus-19. So how do you get attention for a statistics agency when you’re competing against all those things? So that- I would put that as one of the primary challenges. And then to get the attention of the Senator who’s facing all kinds of requests is, you know? We have only dealt with staff on the Senate side for this.
Bailer: You know one problem Steve; it seems like the whole idea of what a statistical agency is seems really elusive. It seems very distant from most people’s lives, even though it’s tremendously impactful on life, that to think that there might be some organization out there that’s collecting information to help with better decision-making, relative to the mission of that agency. Could you just sort of talk about some of the things that the NCES does? I mean you talked about the rapid response survey being part of something that they do, but kind of just sort of part of the scope and impact of an organization like NCES.
Pierson: Yes, so I’m going to address this broadly first, if I may.
Bailer: Please.
Pierson: So a lot of times we hear about government statistics but we don’t hear about the name of that agency, and we think that is a problem because if you don’t recognize the name of the agency collecting the data then it can easily kind of fall into neglect and not get the budget it needs or the independence it needs. So that’s an example of where National Center for Health Statistics, their data is often referred to as CDC data because NCHS is part of CDC. And commerce data could be census data or bureau of economic analysis, and so one of the things that we try to do is encourage media or others to name the agency, so people know where it’s coming from. For the Department of Education NCES, so what does NCES do? You frequently hear about the nation’s report card, which largely relies on NCES data. Or, you know, how do American fourth-graders compare to fourth graders around the world? That is an NCES survey. Data that- on school safety and discipline and crime, that is done by an NCES- informed by an NCES survey. So, there are homeschooling surveys, they also do surveys about how do students fund their college? A lot of students rely on the school, or families I should say families and students rely on the school locator, or you know, just the college navigator. So those are- you know, there are so many surveys that they do that can inform any aspect of education from pre-k and daycare all the way up through higher ed.
Pennington: You’re listening to Stats and Stories and today we’re talking to director of science policy at the ASA Steve Pierson. Is this work becoming more difficult? One question that Richard often poses in our interviews with individuals who appear here is sort of what is it like to preach the gospel of statistics at a moment when it feels like data and particularly statistical information is received with an amount of skepticism? You know, in the public and amongst policymakers, you know sort of there’s this real broad skepticism, has it impacted the way you’re approaching this position and has it sort of made you rethink strategies or has it become more difficult? What is it like doing this work in this environment?
Pierson: I’m going to start with the positive. I feel like the decade of the 2010s has been the decade of statistics. There are, you know, if you look at how many students are majoring in statistics, I think it’s like quintupled since the late 2000s. And, you know, it’s the data science it’s the big data. Statistics is being recognized, you know and that’s statistics the science of learning from data. So, I feel like there is this growing recognition of the importance of statistics and what statisticians bring to the table. You know, I think that Nate Silver might have had something to do with that as well going back to the late 2000-
Pennington: Well, he doesn’t hurt.
Pierson: Yes, exactly. So, I think there are a lot of things going for statistics, we’re still a small profession, we’re just a fraction of the number of annual graduates at the B.A. level compared to physics or computer science or mathematics or in engineering. But I think things are really going well. You know, there is kind of this- there’s a lot of controversies now about, you know, data and is it accurate? But- and- so this is one of those pauses. Is there- is it becoming more difficult? I think- I guess I’m ambivalent about that. It’s always a challenge to get some media reporting, some challenging, and it does kind of take a higher bar, but I, you know, I guess I’m mostly pretty sanguine about where things are at for statistics.
Pennington: Since you mentioned media, I’m going to jump in with another one of Richard’s questions, I just want to give him credit, so he doesn’t accuse me of plagiarizing. But, you know he also was curious sort of what your strategies were when working with news media to try to get out information the importance of good data in statistics, how do you work with news media to sort of, you know get the word out. You mentioned trying to get news media to use the names of statistical agencies in their reporting, are there other things that you’re doing to try to kind of improve that?
Pierson: So, one of our campaigns for the ASA is called Count on Stats and its goal is to promote or build public confidence and trust in government statistics. And so, we work with a communications firm that have good connections with the media. It is the case that will get the most attention if there is a controversy. So, in 2018 the Department of Agriculture proposed to basically move two research agencies out of DC, which, we knew from the beginning would gut those agencies. And there was a lot of attention around that and, you know, people recognized that this was a really big issue and that there were problems. So that was relatively easy because it was, you know- and it also involved the politics of this administration that has been controversial at times. You know, for NCES, we were able to pitch a story through our Science Policy fellow Daniel Elkhart to Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post, and she was quite receptive to that. But I’ll say that this moment of the pandemic or these months, it’s harder, understandably to pitch anything. But you know, it is a challenge and it really kind of takes these here’s what we’re going to lose to get that attention, but we’ve also noticed just an incredible sophistication for some journalists in using the data of federal fiscal agencies, it’s really encouraging and heartening to see that kind of engagement.
Bailer: You know one thing that I think would be a challenge is that you have almost 20,000 members of the ASA, and you know, certainly there’s not going to be a consensus when there’s a particular policy or some statement perhaps that ASA would release. How do you balance that kind of challenge of consensus among a large entity and then making kind of a statement for the organization?
Pierson: Yeah, I want to be very careful about anything with the ASA because the ASA is a professional association, whose reputation depends upon providing the best scientific advice and recommendation that we can, and part of that is just making sure that what we’re promoting is based on our expertise and it doesn’t cross a policy line unless we have that expertise. But in making sure that we’re protecting the reputation of the ASA and we’re speaking for the ASA, I, you know, everything gets basically gets run through the board. And you know for each issue because a lot of times there is a board statement I can refer to or there are press events, but the board- I think it was five years ago, four or five years ago developed a list of questions for when we want to act on an issue. So, the questions include does the issue have an impact on the statistics profession? Does it relate to infringement of scientific freedom or human rights? Would our members expect us to be involved in the issue? So, we have these guiding questions John, and there’s close consultation with the ASA Executive Director and the ASA board. So, you know, first and foremost I want to make sure that I’m acting on ASA’s behalf and interest.
Bailer: You know, one thing that I’m interested in is you’ve written for columns in Amstat News, you’ve written columns in Linkedin articles and on the Hill, that’s a real different kind of writing than writing for a scientific result. So, can you talk a little bit about the transition from research writing to advocacy and more of a general audience writing? That sounds like a Richard question, doesn’t its Rosemary?
Pennington: Yes, I think so. Richard would be proud.
Bailer: I’m channeling Richard, but actually I’m also just interested as well in the general public communication to a different type of audience.
Pierson: Yeah, I have a lot to learn in that regard. I have such respect for journalists and really good writers, and it is kind of a shift of thinking. You know, when I first started my position with ASA I would- if there was a board meeting and I was speaking I would always apologize that I was not a statistician and finally the President from about that time, Tony Lockenbrook said Steve, in front of all of the board he just said Steve stop apologizing. I wish I knew more statistics, but at the same time, it forces me to make sure that I understand the statistics well enough that I can translate it. And so, I’m always kind of thinking about the issue from kind of that- somewhat of an outside perspective. I mean I’m still a scientist, but it helps me to kind of think about how it is being received. It’s an ongoing challenge for me and something that I’m still working on, but I really enjoy that challenge of trying to make this- put things in a perspective that will be understandable and compelling for a staffer or a journalist, or I mean, I think it’s really fun and I think it’s a big challenge and maybe, you know, you can provide me with some insights form your work.
Bailer: So, what makes it compelling? What’s a hook? Can you give an example of a hook that made a story compelling?
Pierson: Yeah, I mean, I think I would go back to the pitch that our ASA fellow Daniel Elkhart just provided, which was, you know, if a family is looking at you know where they want to go to college and they’re looking at data that’s two or three years old, I mean that’s- you don’t want data that is that old and it’s going to be especially true going forward, you want the most up to date data. So, just making it as relatable to people as possible. I think one of the fun things about working for the ASA for me is you get to interact with other associations. So, many years ago there was a proposal in Congress to make the American Community Survey voluntary. And the American Community Survey used to be the long form of the census, a lot of people have not heard of it. It goes to I think more than three million households a year I think about 350,000 households a month and it’s mandatory, and as a result, it’s got really high response rates and it gives really rich data on demographics on housing, on social condition, and businesses use that data to say okay, am I going to- where am I going to put this facility? How are the commutes? Is the workforce there that can support my facility? There are stories from Houston that Houston was able to get a company to come to this- to the Houston area instead of Mexico because they could show that they had the data using the ACS. I was also in a meeting in an Arkansas congressman’s office where the staffer said oh my boss knows the importance of this data when he was mayor of the city he was able to convince a chain restaurant to come because we had the people that would use this. So, you know, you get to work firsthand with the businesses. I think part of making it compelling is to work with these, you know, whether it’s- whatever the business group is, that they can say here’s why this is important and I think that is how you can make it compelling. It’s not just the ASA coming in, we’re somewhat of a facilitator. We can bring in other groups who use the data and have relevance to that person’s job.
Pennington: Well Steve that’s all the time we have for this episode of Stats and Stories, thank you so much for being here.
Pierson: Thank you for having me, it’s been a real pleasure.
Bailer: Always a pleasure Steve.
Pennington: Stats and Stories is a partnership between Miami University’s Departments of Statistics and Media, Journalism and Film, and the American Statistical Association. You can follow us on Twitter or Apple podcasts or other places you can find podcasts. If you’d like to share your thoughts on the program send your email to statsandstories@miamioh.edu, or check us out at statsandstories.net, and be sure to listen for future editions of Stats and Stories, where we discuss the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics.