Dr. Regina Nuzzo is a freelance science writer and professor in Washington, DC. After studying engineering as an undergraduate she earned her PhD in Statistics from Stanford University. Currently she’s teaching statistics in American Sign Language at Gallaudet University, the world’s only liberal arts college for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
Dr. Nuzzo is also a graduate of Science Communication program at the University of California-Santa Cruz. Her science journalism specialties center around data, probability, statistics, and the research process. Her work has appeared in Nature, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Reader’s Digest, New Scientist, and Scientific American, among others. You can read some of her writing here.
Dr. Nuzzo has been invited to speak to a variety of audiences about her work, such as why we just can’t understand p-values, how our brain can fool us during data analysis, what happens when people abuse and misuse statistics, and tips and tricks for communicating anything with numbers and statistics. You can read more about some of her talks here.
PhD in Statistics
Stanford University
Graduate Certificate, Science Communication
University of California-Santa Cruz
BS in Industrial Engineering
University of South Florida
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Under construction.
See the CV for a complete list.
Under construction.
See the CV for a complete list.
I started tutoring when I was 13 and haven’t really stopped since. As a graduate student I was involved in TA training and co-taught a stats course in the med school. As a professor I’ve taught a variety of courses, from freshman intro stats to applied stats for clinical psychology doctoral students. I love creative approaches to teaching. These days I’m mostly using a flipped-classroom approach with just-in-time teaching, plus multi-stage cooperative exams.
I’m a graduate of the University of California-Santa Cruz science writing program and have been a freelance science journalist since 2006. I’ve written about everything from humans’ head lice to horses’ nasal breathing strips, from the neuroimaging of criminal recidivism to the neuroscience of orgasms, from penises to p-values. My latest project involved teaming up with an artist to develop an illustrated feature about statistical issues in forensic science.
I’ve given more than three dozen talks on p-values, cognitive biases during the research process, quantitative communication, and what journalists need to know about statistics. In May 2018 I gave a keynote at the American Association for Public Opinion Research conference, and in August I gave a plenary at the American Psychological Association convention. In March 2019 I will give a keynote at Eurostat’s New Techniques and Technologies for Statistics conference in Brussels.
My Ph.D. is in statistics, and I love how stats is both the gas pedal and the brake in the scientific progress machine. Most people think of statistics as just numbers, or formulas, or maybe even methods – but I see statistics as a philosophy and outlook on the world.
I try to give my students and the journalists I consult for an appreciation for mucking around in the data. I’m enthusiastic about modern tools for teaching data analysis, and I use R Notebooks for teaching whenever I can.
I use a cochlear implant, which I’ve affectionately named “Tiny,” short for “Tiny Brain Computer.” Without it, I’m deaf. I got Tiny as an adult, after I’d already been missing a sizeable chunk of my hearing since birth. So my brain has had to learn how to hear many sounds for the first time. Adult neuroplasticity is amazing. Curious? You can read some descriptions here.