Episode 21: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistical Science

“Being a statistician means never having to say you’re certain.” ‘Scopers, can you guess what today’s episode is about? Hint: it involves statistics. The Center for Open Science (COS) is an organization with the goal of increasing openness, integrity, and reproducibility of scientific research. Statistical and methodological consultant at COS, Dr. Courtney Soderberg, joins us for […]

Retraction Watch: Nerd tabloid or societal good?

We work hard for the privilege of being scientists. We study, we do research, we struggle and we fail. We spend time in dark rooms and cold rooms and mouse rooms and we work weekends and nights and holidays. And when we’re very lucky, we publish the product of all that effort. But stuff happens, […]

When things go right! First images and data from SMAP

So I’m now the proud parent of one orbiting, deployed, spinning, fully functional spacecraft!  The SMAP satellite is done initiating all its systems and has taken its first global soil measurement maps: Since the Earth environment where we built SMAP is very different than the space environment where we operate SMAP, we never before had […]

Episode 3: The (Data) Campaign Trail

It’s Tuesday, and we’re back with a brand new episode! Our guest is Kassia Devorsey, a data and analytics consultant. Kass has previously worked for the Democratic National Committee as well as President Obama’s re-election campaign. Listen to us chat about modeling, big data in politics, and scary MIT robots.