There are a lot of facts and figures to sift through when it comes to the COVID 19 pandemic – there are death rates and infection rates to consider, as well as the paths of infection in a particular community. Investigating the pandemic is the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guests Ron Fricker and Steve Rigdon.

Dr. Ronald D. Fricker, Jr. is a Professor of Statistics and the Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Administration in the Virginia Tech College of Science. He holds a PhD and an MA in Statistics from Yale University, an MS in Operations Research from The George Washington University, and a bachelor’s degree from the United States Naval Academy.  He is the author of Introduction to Statistical Methods for Biosurveillance published by Cambridge University Press and co-author with Dr. Steve Rigdon of Monitoring the Health of Populations by Tracking Disease Outbreaks and Epidemics: Saving Humanity from the Next Plague published by the American Statistical Association and CRC Press. Dr. Fricker is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Steve Rigdon is a Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Saint Louis University College for Public Health and Social Justice where he teaches about Baysian statistical methods. His research interests include Biosurveillance; models for election prediction; quality; survival analysis.