We’re thrilled to announce the winner of the Statistical Excellence Award for Early-Career Writing: ‘Early Scottish statisticians and their lasting legacy’, a story about a trio of Scottish statisticians by Zhaoxi Zhang, a PHD student in statistics at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
The judges described the piece as accomplished, complete and unique, bringing to vivid life three early statistical giants from Scotland, and showing they were far from “number-crunchers in ivory towers”.
Jointly organised by
Significance and the
Young Statisticians Section of the Royal Statistical Society, the Statistical Excellence Award for Early Career Writing invites early-career statisticians and data scientists to tell a data-related story that matters to them – one that helps society understand today’s biggest issues, and make better decisions.
Runners up were Becky Griffiths, a recent mathematics graduate from the University of Bristol, UK, for ‘The Semmelweis Effect: How many lives can hand hygiene save?’ and Sarah C. Lotspeich, an assistant professor of statistics at Wake Forest University, USA, for ‘Interweaving probability and crochet: A stati-stitchin’s guide’.
Mark Louie F. Ramos was highly commended for his entry ‘Autism, Bayesian probability, and why we do what we do’.
The three finalists have been invited to present papers based on their articles at the
RSS 2025 Annual Conference, which takes place 1-4 September in Edinburgh. The winning article will be published in a future print edition of
Significance and its digital version. Runners-up will be published on the
Significance website.