Home Page for Professor Jessica Utts

Department of Statistics

University of California, Irvine

Professor Emerita Jessica Utts Department of Statistics University of California, Irvine.   Photo courtesy of Anna Karin Malm

Contact Information

Professor Emerita Jessica Utts Department of Statistics Donald Bren Hall University of California Irvine, CA 92697-1250

Email (not clickable to reduce spam): Department office: 2042 Donald Bren Hall, UC Irvine

Major Administrative and Service Roles (Current and Recent Past, with links)

• 2016 President, American Statistical Association
• Chair, Department of Statistics, University of California, Irvine, 2011-2016
• Chief Reader, Advanced Placement Statistics Exam, 2014-2018
• Vice President, International Association for Statistical Education, 2011-2013
• Member, Board of Directors, American Statistical Association, 2010-2012
• Chair, Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS), Jan 2007 - Dec 2009
• Chair of the Board, Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE)
• Vice-Chair of the Board, National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS), 2008-2011

Representative Presentations

• Enhancing Data Science Ethics through Statistical Education and Practice (slides) and Video
• YouTube Video: ASA Presidential address, "Appreciating Statistics" (begins with Introduction by David Morgenstein)
• YouTube Video: "Talking Points" TV Interview, Cal State Long Beach, on Remote Viewing and Statistics
• How basic statistical literacy can save you money, and maybe even save your life, Math Across the Cannon Lecture, Carlteon and St. Olaf Colleges, April 24, 2018
• Understanding P-Values (joint with Ron Wasserstein), St. Olaf College, April 24, 2018
• AP Annual Conference 2017: Results and Teaching Tips from the 2017 AP Statistics Exam and Compact version with 6 slides per page
• Show Me the Data... About Careers in Statistics US Conference on Teaching Statistics, May 2017
• AP Annual Conference 2016: Results and Teaching Tips from the 2016 AP Statistics Exam and Compact version with 4 slides per page
• Communicating the Value of Statistics; Keynote address at the 2016 ASA Conference on Statistical Practice
• AP Annual Conference 2015: Results and Teaching Tips from the 2015 AP Statistics Exam and Compact version with 4 slides per page
• AP Annual Conference 2014: Results and Teaching Tips from the 2014 AP Statistics Exam
• The Importance of Statistics Education, Santiago, Chile, January 2013 and Round Table Talk
• Statistics Workshop, 56th Annual Conference of the Parapsychological Association, Viterbo, Italy, August 2013
• AP Statistics Professional Night Talk: What Do Future Senators, Scientists, Social Workers and Sales Clerks Need to Learn from Your Statistics Class? (pdf version)
• From Seances to Science: Investigating Psychic Phenomena with Statistics and pdf version
• California State University, Fullerton, October 6, 2011: Are we all Bayesians? The strength of evidence vs the power of belief
• California Mathematics Council, Community Colleges (CMC³), December 13, 2008, Monterey, CA
• Analysis of Milton Wiseman Meta-analysis, July 15, 2007, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• WNAR New Researchers' Lunch, June 26, 2007, Irvine, CA
• Japanese Behaviormetrics Society, September 12, 2006, Tokyo, Japan
• Japan Joint Statistics Meeting, September 7, 2006, Sendai, Japan
• Stor Konferens om Parapsykologisk Forskning, Stockholm, Sweden, August 3, 2006
• GAISE Workshop/AMATYC, Nov 8&9, 2005
• CMCCC, Dec 2, 2005

Classes at UC Irvine

• Statistics 7, Basic Statistics
• Statistics 110, Statistical Methods for Data Analysis I (Undergraduate)
• Statistics 201, Statistical Methods for Data Analysis I (Graduate)
• Statistics 110 and 201, Statistical Methods for Data Analysis I (combined)
• Statistics 210,Statistical Methods I: Linear Models
• Statistics 8, Introduction to Biostatistics

Past Classes at UC Davis

• Statistics 108, Regression Analysis
• Statistics 390, Methods of Teaching Statistics
• Statistics 13V, Web-based Statistics
• Integrated Studies 8C, Testing Psychic Claims

My Curriculum Vitae

• Updated CV (when I remember to do it!)
• Employment History
• Administrative Experience at UC Davis
• Awards, Activities and Grants
• Publications (Scroll down to "My Research Interests" on this page for links to some publications.)
• Word
• PDF

Where I Received my Degrees

• Bachelor of Arts in Math and Psychology at the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1973.
• Master of Arts (1975) and Ph.D. (1978) from the Department of Statistics at Penn State University

Places I Have Had Visiting Appointments

• Department of Statistics, Stanford University
• Koestler Chair of Parapsychology, University of Edinburgh
• Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene (IGPP)
• SRI International, project now moved to Cognitive Sciences Laboratory

My Research Interests

I am interested in applied statistics, and have published most extensively on the use of statistics in parapsychology.
I am also interested in statistics education and literacy.
I have provided some of the most commonly requested papers here.

In the Fall of 1995 Professor Ray Hyman (University of Oregon)and I prepared a report assessing the statistical evidence for psychic functioning in US government sponsored research. The report was part of a review done by the American Institutes of Research (AIR) at the request of Congress and the CIA. It received wide-spread media coverage.
My report and related reports:

• An Assessment Of The Evidence For Psychic Functioning
• Professor Hyman's report.
• Utts' reply to Hyman's report
• Response by Dr. Edwin May, the lead investigator for the government-sponsored work and Director, Cognitive Sciences Laboratory

"Replication and Meta-Analysis in Parapsychology."  (Statistical Science, with commentary by others) - summarizes some of the statistical evidence for psi phenomena that was available at the time the paper was written (1991).

Utts, Jessica (1999). The Significance of Statistics in Mind-Matter Research, Journal of Scientific Exploration, 13(4), 615-638.

"The Paranormal: the Evidence and its Implications for Consciousness"  published in the [London] Times Higher Education Supplement, Apr. 5th. 1996, page (v), with Nobel Laureate Brian Josephson

Utts, Jessica (2003). What Educated Citizens Should Know about Statistics and Probability, American Statistician, 57(2), 74-79.

My Books

Seeing Through Statistics, 4th edition (2015), ISBN 9781285050881

Mind On Statistics, 6th edition (2022) by Jessica Utts and Robert Heckard, ISBN-13: 9781285463186

Statistical Ideas and Methods, 1st edition (2006) by Jessica Utts and Robert Heckard, ISBN 0-049-512250-5

Last updated July 2016 (with some links updated in the more distant past)