Zalman Usiskin is a professor emeritus of education at the University of Chicago, where he was an active faculty member from 1969 through 2007. He continues at the university as the overall director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project (UCSMP), a position he has held since 1987.

His research has focused on the teaching and learning of arithmetic, algebra, and geometry, with particular attention to applications of mathematics at all levels and the use of transformations and related concepts in geometry, algebra, and statistics. His interests are broader, covering all aspects of mathematics education, with particular emphasis on matters related to curriculum, instruction, and testing; the selection and organization of content; the teaching and learning of mathematics; international mathematics education; teacher education; the history of mathematics education; and educational policy.

He is the author or co-author of over 150 articles and other papers on mathematics and mathematics education, dozens of books and book-length research monographs, including textbooks and their teachers’ editions for each of grades 6 through 12 and a mathematics text for teachers. He has long been particularly interested in the integration of statistics into the traditional mathematics curriculum, developing a high school text “Algebra through Applications with Probability and Statistics” with NSF support (1979), and co-authoring the UCSMP text “Functions, Statistics, and Trigonometry”, now in its third edition.

He is well-known as a speaker in the U.S. and abroad, having spoken at conferences or colloquia in all 50 U.S. states and 25 foreign countries. He received the Glenn Gilbert (National Leadership) Award from the U.S. National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics in 1994, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in 2001. In late 2013, NCTM is scheduled to publish a collection of his papers over five decades, the first time that the organization has published a book of the writings of one person.

David Spiegelhalter is Winton Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk, and Professor of Biostatistics, at the University of Cambridge. His background is in medical statistics, particularly the use of Bayesian methods in clinical trials, health technology assessment and drug safety.

In his post he leads a small team (UnderstandingUncertainty.org) that attempts to improve the way in which the quantitative aspects of risk and uncertainty are discussed in society. He works closely with the Millennium Mathematics Project in Cambridge in trying to develop an exciting treatment of probability and risk for mathematics education. He gives many presentations to schools and others, advises organisations and government agencies on risk communication, and is a regular commentator on current risk issues. He presented the BBC4 documentary “Tails you Win: the Science of Chance”, and in 2011 competed in Winter Wipeout on BBC1.

He has over 190 refereed publications and is co-author of 6 textbooks. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute for Risk Management, was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 2005 and awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to medical statistics.

He is @undunc on Twitter. Home page

Rachel Fewster is an Associate Professor in statistics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She studied mathematics at Cambridge, then moved to Scotland to do a PhD in statistics at the University of St Andrews. In 1999, she took up a two-year postdoctoral position in New Zealand, and is somehow still there. She has particular enthusiasm for communicating mathematical statistics to students from varied backgrounds, by focusing on concepts and seeking out the common-sense everyday experience in formulas and equations. She was awarded a New Zealand National Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award in 2009. Her research focuses on statistical ecology and population genetics, particularly for conserving and restoring New Zealand's spectacular natural heritage. She is an Associate Editor of Biometrics, and a former Associate Editor of JABES.

Ronald L. (Ron) Wasserstein is the executive director of the American Statistical Association (ASA), a post he took on in August 2007. In this role, Ron provides executive leadership and management for the association and is responsible for ensuring that the ASA fulfills its mission to promote the practice and profession of statistics. He also is responsible for a staff of 35 at the ASA’s headquarters in Alexandria, Va. As executive director, Wasserstein also is an official ASA spokesperson.

Prior to joining the ASA, Ron was a mathematics and statistics department faculty member and administrator at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas, from 1984-2007. During his last seven years at the school, he served as the university's vice president for academic affairs.

Ron is a long-time member of the ASA, having joined the association in 1983, and has been active as a volunteer in the ASA for more than 20 years. He twice served as president of the Kansas-Western Missouri Chapter of the ASA. Wasserstein served as chair of two ASA sections-the ASA Section on Statistical Education and the ASA Section on Statistical Consulting. He also chaired the Council of Chapters Governing Board in 2006 and was a member of the ASA Board of Directors from 2001-2003.

Ron is a Fellow of the ASA and American Association for the Advancement of Science. He was presented the John Ritchie Alumni Award and Muriel Clarke Student Life Award from Washburn University and the Manning Distinguished Service Award from the North American Association of Summer Schools.

Pedro Luis do Nascimento Silva, born in 1959, is Principal Researcher at the National School of Statistical Sciences (ENCE) from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE). He got a PhD. in Social Statistics (1996) from the University of Southampton, England, an M.Sc. in Statistics (1988) from the Instituto de Matemática Pura e Aplicada (IMPA) in Rio de Janeiro, and a B.Sc. in Statistics (1980) from ENCE.

Pedro spent most of his professional career at the Methodology unit of IBGE (1981-2002). He then directed the National School of Statistical Sciences from 2003-2006, and worked as Principal Research Fellow in Sampling at the Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) 2006-2010, before returning to ENCE in March 2010.

His main research interests are survey and sampling methodology applied to household and business surveys, as well as the analysis of survey data. He is President-Elect of the International Statistical Institute (2013-2015), presided the International Association of Survey Statisticians (IASS) during 2007-2009, presided IASI (the Inter-American Statistical Institute) during 2004-2005, is a member of the Brazilian Statistical Association, of the Royal Statistical Society, and the American Statistical Association. He was the chief editor of Revista Brasileira de Estatística from 1997-2002, and is currently associate editor to Survey Methodology, International Statistical Review, Revista Brasileira de Estatística, and Estadística. Pedro has extensive experience in teaching both at graduate and undergraduate levels, as well as short training courses both at IBGE, and other universities and statistics agencies in Latin America.