I’m so excited to be here with all of you today.
I grew up by the clean beaches and the beautiful, green mountains
of the northern part of Spain.
It’s just relaxing and inspiring looking at this beautiful picture
of my hometown, isn’t it?
I didn’t want to ignore that beauty of nature
that I missed so much when I moved away.
I also noticed the levels of stress started increasing
as I would spend time away from nature.
I didn’t want to become made out of concrete
that I started to see more and more around me.
Along with nature, music was always a great passion for me.
Playing the piano would relax me, inspire me,
and also, was a way for me to express myself.
I also liked math, numbers. I liked the logic in math.
Math for me has been always a way to make sense of the world around me.
Math and music could be perceived as a very odd couple.
But for me, they both define me. So I study both.
Actually, there is a lot of math in music.
Musicians need to understand fractions very well
if they want to hold correctly the value of the notes.
For me, music would enhance my math learning.
The answers to a lot of math problems
would occur to me when I was playing the piano,
so then I started to put my math homework on top of the piano.
It’s what I hoped, as I was playing,
that I’ll be able to figure out the answers to my homework.
I wanted to use numbers.
I wanted to use math to be able to address some important real world problems;
problems that mattered to me – environmental problems.
Then is when I learned about statistics; that is a branch of mathematics
that helps you to transform numbers into knowledge.
Statistics is the science that extracts information from data,
and we apply that to the environment or to medicine.
We have introduced personalized medicine.
What that means is that we developed individualized treatments for patients,
and that helped us to improve human health
by combining a lot of data from genetics and the environmental conditions.
That’s the beauty of statistics.
Statistics helps you to use your technical knowledge and skills
and apply it to any area that you are interested in.
Statisticians often say
that a great thing about being a statistician
is that statisticians can play in everyone’s backyard.
And I love backyards,
particularly the ones that have a lot of green areas and beautiful trees,
so I can bring my children in the beauty of nature.
But then, soon enough, I learned some of the challenges
that women in science often face,
and I was determined to overcome them.
For my daughter, I have always wanted to be a good role model for her.
I was told I couldn’t lead scientists because the important conversations,
the important decisions at the universities
happen in the men’s bathroom.
(Laughter)
Well, I led scientists, and now at VCU, where I’m very proud to be,
I lead the humanities and the sciences,
and I never, not even once, had to use the men’s bathroom.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
One of the most important trends right now in our society,
probably the most important trend in science
is the access that we have to big data.
We have big data everywhere.
So it’s important that we make use of the data,
that we transform the data into valuable knowledge.
Let me just illustrate what really big data is about.
We have now the Square Kilometre Array.
That’s the world’s most powerful radio telescope.
This telescope in one day is able
to generate as much data as we have on the Internet today.
It has enough optical fiber to wrap twice around the Earth.
It has the processing power of one billion PCs,
and in one day generates enough data to fill 15 million iPods.
That’s big data.
We want to make use of the data,
we want to introduce the statistical tools that can help us to transform the data,
give us information, knowledge.
We need to develop those approaches that can help us to work with big data,
that we can summarize the results and be able to reach the public
with powerful visualization tools.
And it’s just much more than the mean.
I’m sure you know the statistical mean, the average,
but it is much more than that.
Let me illustrate some of the limitations of working just with the mean.
Here we have 100 pictures of kids going to see Santa.
There are some questions of interest.
We want to know if we have maybe more boys or more girls going to see Santa,
if they tend to sit on his right lap or the left lap,
or we get two kids at the same time versus one.
Those are the questions of interest.
Well, let’s take the mean to see what happens.
What does the mean? That’s what we get. You see it in the picture.
It’s not even clear that’s Santa. That could be the wizard of Harry Potter.
(Laughter)
So we need more than the mean,
we need to be able to summarize the data in different ways.
We need to look at percentiles,
and we certainly need to look at the variability
that we see across the pictures.
We need to characterize the uncertainty in our mean, in our estimate.
Statistics is called the science of the uncertainty.
When we provide prediction, forecast, a mean,
we need to be able to characterize the uncertainty
that we have about that estimation.
I love uncertainty. It makes me comfortable.
I’d rather go through life with acceptance of not knowing,
than just having an answer that is simply yes or no.
In my research, what I do, I introduce the statistical methods,
the statistical tools that can help us to address
some of the most relevant environmental problems:
how the temperatures are increasing, how the level of pollution is increasing,
and how is that impacting human health,
leading to premature death or birth defects,
when we have pregnant women exposed to those high levels of pollution.
As I left the northern part of the Spain, I developed a passion for the environment.
I wanted to bring the calm, the beauty of nature to my children,
and I use statistics to address those environmental problems.
In 2003, we had in Europe 35,000 people dying
due to exposure to very high temperatures.
So with my statistical methods, I look at the temperatures –
how they are increasing over time.
Here I’m projecting, going from 1990 to 2040,
in the southern part of the United States,
we are going to experience an increase of 5.2 degrees Fahrenheit in temperatures.
If we look at the very extreme temperatures,
the very high temperatures, temperatures above the 95th percentile,
the increase will be 7.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
That’s a very significant increase.
I also look at the number of days exceeding a very high temperature.
For instance, 99 degrees Fahrenheit.
When we move into 2040, I’m projecting it’s going to be 54.
I also characterize the uncertainty about that prediction.
So it will be between 46 days and 64 days.
That’s a very, very significant increase in the temperatures.
The increase in the temperatures
is also going to be linked to increase in air pollution,
because the air pollutants, for the most part,
are very sensitive to the temperature values.
In particular, the ozone.
The ozone is a very dangerous pollutant.
It leads to cardiovascular problems, premature death.
For the formation of the ozone we need high temperatures.
So we project, and now moving from 1990 to 2050,
we are going to also observe an increase in the values of the ozone.
That increase is going to change across the space.
It’s going to be greater in the Midwest.
We are going to experience about 12% increase in the Midwest.
Along the coastline, the increase will be about 4%.
So we look how the pollution is impacting human health.
We introduce statistical models that help us to link the temperature,
air pollution, the human health outcomes,
with the purpose of helping, trying to help our citizens,
to improve the well-being of our citizens.
But we need to summarize the results in a way that can reach you,
so we use maps, we use colors.
In this map, when the color is green,
that indicates that we have acceptable levels of pollution.
As the color goes from green all the way to purple,
that indicates an increase in the levels of pollution.
We also have flags in the schools.
In North Carolina,
we have a flag to indicate what the levels of pollution are.
When it’s yellow, kids with asthma should be inside.
When it becomes orange, we keep all the children indoors during recess
to avoid exposure to very high levels of pollution
that could lead to respiratory, cardiovascular problems or asthma.
We have such a great demand for statistics,
and a small supply of statisticians.
It’s just a great, great time to be a statistician.
(Laughter)
Actually, statistics was named the sexiest job of this decade.
(Laughter)
(Applause)
Statistics helps us to transform data into knowledge,
protect our environment, make informed decisions,
make the world a better place.
And remember, most likely, you have a statistician in your backyard.
Thank you.
(Applause)
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