Helen Louise MacGillivray AM FRSS is an Australian statistician and statistics educator. She is the former president of the International Statistical Institute, the International Association for Statistical Education, and the Statistical Society of Australia, and chair of the United Nations Global Network of Institutions for Statistical Training.
MacGillivray entered her studies at the University of Queensland planning to work in physics, but ended up earning a bachelor's degree with honours in mathematics, in the course of which she discovered her love for statistics. [1] [2] She remained at the University of Queensland for graduate study, and completed a Ph.D. in statistics there. [1] Her dissertation was Moment inequalities with applications to particle size distributions. [3]
She was a professor of statistics and director of the Maths Access Centre at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), until her retirement. [1] She continues to hold an adjunct professorship at QUT. [4]
MacGillivray is the editor of the journal Teaching Statistics. [1] [2]
She was president of the International Statistical Institute for the 2017–2019 term. [5] When she was elected president she became both the second woman and the second Australian to hold the position, after Denise Lievesley and Dennis Trewin. [1] [2] She was the first female president of the Statistical Society of Australia. [2] She was president of the International Association for Statistical Education for 2009–2011, [6] and is the founding chair of the Global Network of Institutions for Statistical Training of the United Nations. [1]
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With Peter Petocz, MacGillivray is the coauthor of the two-volume textbook Statistics and Probability in the Australian Curriculum (Years 7 and 8, and Years 9 and 10), and is the author of Utts & Heckard's Mind on Statistics (Nelson Australia, 2010, adapted from previous work by Jessica Utts and Robert Heckard).
MacGillivray is a Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, [4] an Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow, [2] [7] an honorary life member of the Statistical Society of Australia, [2] and a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. [1] [2]
She was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2024 Australia Day Honours for her "significant service to mathematics and statistics education". [8]
Jessica Utts is a parapsychologist and statistics professor at the University of California, Irvine. She is known for her textbooks on statistics and her investigation into remote viewing.
Helen Rhoda Arnold Quinn is an Australian-born particle physicist and educator who has made major contributions to both fields. Her contributions to theoretical physics include the Peccei–Quinn theory which implies a corresponding symmetry of nature(related to matter-antimatter symmetry and the possible source of the dark matter that pervades the universe) and contributions to the search for a unified theory for the three types of particle interactions. As Chair of the Board on Science Education of the National Academy of Sciences, Quinn led the effort that produced A Framework for K-12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas—the basis for the Next Generation Science Standards adopted by many states. Her honours include the Dirac Medal of the International Center for Theoretical Physics, the Oskar Klein Medal from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, appointment as an Honorary Officer of the Order of Australia, the J. J. Sakurai Prize for Theoretical Particle Physics from the American Physical Society, the Karl Taylor Compton Medal for Leadership in Physics from the American Institute of Physics, the 2018 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute, and the 2023 Harvey Prize from Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology.
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Statistics education is the practice of teaching and learning of statistics, along with the associated scholarly research.
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