These days I like to discuss
- Statistical Communication
- The Casual Inference Podcast
- Large-scale medical data
- Italian
- Co-founding R-Ladies Nashville
- Human-data interaction
- Disney World
over coffee

Lucy D’Agostino McGowan
Lucy D’Agostino McGowan is an assistant professor in the Mathematics and Statistics Department at Wake Forest University. She received her PhD in Biostatistics from Vanderbilt University and completed her postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research focuses on statistical communication, causal inference, data science pedagogy, and human-data interaction. Dr. D’Agostino McGowan is the 2021 chair of the American Statistical Association’s Committee on Women in Statistics and can be found blogging at livefreeordichotomize.com, on Twitter @LucyStats, and podcasting on the American Journal of Epidemiology partner podcast, Casual Inference.
Listen to the Casual Inference Podcast
Recent & Upcoming Talks
Panel Discussion: Communicating during a pandemic: what worked, what didn’t and what’s next

The Wake Forest Conference on Analytics Impact is focused on the impactful use of analytics to solve problems in business, non-profits, government agencies and society. During the pandemic, government officials and healthcare professionals have more so than ever before, had to communicate to the public using healthcare data. How to communicate these data statistically and visually to influence people’s behavior has proven very challenging. What have we learned about communicating with data during this crisis? What did we get right and what failed? This year’s Conference on Analytics Impact is focused on communicating with health care data and lessons learned from the pandemic.
Read moreTips for Statistical Communication and Data Storytelling

Without strong communication skills, all the advanced analysis we have performed might be overrun. At this event, our expert panelists will share tips and advice on how to clearly and effectively communicate statistics, particularly in social media, and answer questions from the audience.
Read moreWhat is the value of the p-value?

The debate over the value and interpretation of p-value has endured since the time of its inception nearly 100 years ago. The use and interpretation of p-values vary by a host of factors, especially by discipline. These differences have proven to be a barrier when developing and implementing boundary-crossing clinical and translational science. The purpose of this panel discussion is to discuss misconceptions, debates, and alternatives to the p-value.
Read moreTeaching
Understanding data and statistics in the medical literature

Whether a medical student reading their first journal article or a healthcare professional trying to use the latest research to improve patient care, this course will help you understand data and statistics in the medical literature in an efficient and conceptual manner.
Read moreCreating dynamic dashboards with the shinydashboard R package

Shinydashboards. This course teaches how to use the shinydashboard R package. By the end you should be able to build a simple dynamic dashboard!
Read moreMeasuring and Maximizing Impact of COVID-19 Contact Tracing

This course aims to provide managers and developers of contact tracing programs guidance on the most important indicators of performance of a contact tracing program, and a tool that can be used to project the likely impact of improvements in specific indicators.
Read more