It gives us great pleasure to announce that Robyn Goldsmith is the winner of the 2023 Statistical Excellence Award for Early-Career Writing.
As announced at the RSS Statistical Excellence Awards on the evening of 6 July, judges found Robyn’s article “Surfing the Korean wave” to be both well-written and relevant. In exploring the astonishing rise in global popularity of Korean culture - from pop music to cosmetics - and, in stylish and engaging prose, audaciously implying a parallel with the spread of the Covid-19 virus, Robyn has crafted the perfect Significance article and is a worthy winner of this year’s contest.
Congratulations to Robyn – “Surfing the Korean wave” will be published in a future issue of Significance. Jointly organised by Significance and the Young Statisticians Section of the Royal Statistical Society, the competition forms part of the RSS Statistical Excellence Awards programme.
Judging took place throughout June, and this year's shortlist (in alphabetical order) was:
· Robyn Goldsmith (Lancaster University, UK) Surfing the Korean wave
· James Jackson (Turing Institute, UK) How many words in Shakespeare’s vocabulary?
· Kenneth Menglin Lee (Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore) Boxing with George EP Box The three finalists have been invited to present papers based on their articles at the RSS 2023 Annual Conference, which takes place 4-7 September in Harrogate. The winning article will be published in a future print edition of Significance and online. Runners-up will also be published online.
Congratulations to Robyn, James and Kenneth on making the shortlist, and many thanks to all the other early-career statisticians and data scientists who took the time to submit interesting and thought-provoking pieces.
Significance editor Anna Britten said: “This year’s entries covered a huge variety of topics, and all showed great invention and thoughtfulness. We loved reading each one. It was tough to whittle them down, but we know our three-strong shortlist - covering the statistical stories behind the soaring popularity of Korean culture, the richness of Shakespeare’s writing and the best way to win a boxing match - will both entertain and enlighten our discerning Significance audience.”