‘Friday Before Pi Day,’ a Pi Day Celebration
The Office of Data Science Strategy is hosting “Friday Before Pi Day,” a Friday-the-13th inspired Pi Day celebration on Friday, Mar. 13 in Bldg. 35 beginning at 9 a.m. The event celebrates the wonder of pi and highlights the role of data science and mathematics fields in biomedical research.
There will be two pi-themed sessions:
- Scary stories about data and the lessons we can learn from them. NIH employees will share horror stories related to data visualization, data management, data sharing, etc., and then provide solutions to make sure attendees don’t become the subject of a “tall tale.”
- Pi-tionary: 3:14-minute illustrated lightning talks. Offices and labs will have a teammate give a 3:14-long talk about their office/lab while a fellow teammate draws the content of the talk. Bonus points will be given for groups that incorporate pi into their drawings, tell a “scary” story as part of their presentation and use lay terms. It’s a Pi Day version of Pictionary! This will be an audience-judged event with the winner(s) receiving a full-size pie as prize.
The day’s activities will also feature a keynote lecture from data scientist Dr. Rebecca Nugent, an award-winning professor of statistics and data science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), where she holds the Stephen E. and Joyce Fienberg professorship in statistics & data science. Nugent’s talk will focus on how data science is the “science of the people” and how data can be harnessed by everyone.
She is a past recipient of the American Statistical Association’s Waller Education Award, a national award for innovation in statistics education. She is also a past chair of the Women in Data Science Conference at CMU.
To learn more about “Friday Before Pi Day” visit datascience.nih.gov/Friday-before-pi-day-2020.
Additional sponsors include OD, NLM, CIT, NIAID and NCI.