About the Author
Dr. N. Georgie Justice is just as klutzy as her main characters. By day, she works in her dream job teaching college students to be ethical data storytellers at Pacific Lutheran University. She holds a Ph.D. in something to do with statistics and education—it changes every time she explains it. Thanks to her generous colleagues’ nominations, she has won several awards for teaching statistics.
Georgie and her kind-hearted husband like to gaze at mountains in the Pacific Northwest United States while their three lively children ask for a snack. They all enjoy playing nerdy board games together, sampling small-batch ice cream, and throwing rocks into water. They aspire to someday hold a pickleball tournament in their front driveway, or to grow a strawberry patch there. She secretly enjoys it when her neighbor’s cat sneaks into the house without the children noticing that he followed them inside.
Her Take on the Nature of Data Science & Why it Matters for Kids
It is important that kids from all political backgrounds and world paradigms can ethically and skillfully digest, and critique, and draw conclusions from statistical information. Georgie’s dream is that we don’t only accept statistical results that align with our own prior views, but rather stay open minded to what the data can tell us. All data investigations are steeped in human influence. There is no such thing as a “pure scientific study” that doesn’t have human decisions along the way. This does not mean that data are worthless! Rather, we need to teach our kids to be able to appropriately critique statistical studies, and to hold conclusions humbly. These themes are consistent in the Data Insighters books.
Her Views on Faith and Science
Dr. Justice believes that faith and science are not in conflict with one another. As such, the STEM-oriented kids in her books offer moments or prayer, expressions of worship as they marvel at creation, authentic questions of faith, and sincere doubts in a manner that is consistent with her own faith journey. (Here is one of her favorite sermons by Tim Keller about how our doubts can actually deepen our faith!)
Georgie hopes that kids from a wide swath of worldviews can learn more about ethical data collection, interpretation, and storytelling through her books.
How Did Data Insighters Begin?
Georgie started thinking up the Data Insighters when she was working on her Ph.D. and taking a seminar class on Statistical Thinking. One of her professors kept insisting that statistical thinkers aren’t necessarily skeptics, they are just open minded. She became interested in developing a character who was skeptical but insisted he was just open-minded. That particular character has since dissolved as other, more vibrant characters emerged in her books. Stay tuned! Perhaps there will come a time when he can emerge again.