A Message from WSS's President,
Jonathan Auerbach

To the Washington, DC Statistics and Data Science Community,

It is an honor to serve as the 2024-2025 president of the Washington Statistical Society. I look forward to working with you as we advance our mission of fostering statistical thinking and promoting unity among those concerned with statistical matters in the Washington metropolitan area.

Now is an exciting time to be a member. The Washington Statistical Society was established in 1926 and is approaching its 100th birthday. This occasion provides an opportunity to reflect on the relevance of our activities and how we might better serve our mission.

One might ask whether a regional association such as ours is obsolete. Professional communities are no longer bound by geography. Remote work is the norm in many industries, and there are few logistical reasons why activities should be limited by location.

But our regional mission is in fact more relevant than ever before. That is because the concerns of Washington area statisticians—such as the quality of federal statistics and public information, the use of data as evidence for policy-making, and the promotion of statistics as necessary civics education—are of unprecedented national importance, shaping the infrastructure on which our modern data-dependent society is being built. These concerns are not limited to the Washington area, but our association with Washington, the seat of power in the US, provides the ultimate vantage point from which we can work together to advance them.

As we prepare for the coming centennial, I encourage us to think about the Washington Statistical Society not as one of many regional associations, but as the embodiment of an agenda of pressing statistical issues that, due to their national importance, will sustain our organization for the next 100 years.

Sincerely,
Jonathan Auerbach
WSS President, 2024─2025