PRESS PLAY
Our Data Science Zoominars feature interactive conversation with #datascience experts and a live Q+A session moderated by faculty at the Department of Data Science at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Data science becomes a practice of judgment here, tested against elections, public policy, education, visual communication, medicine, and research integrity.
Rafael Irizarry keeps pressing data science past the polished result: How reliable is the model, what does the graphic communicate, and what happens when a measurement enters public life?
Puerto Rico's municipal report card makes you ask: must somebody get an F?
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A steady look at data science education and the limits of measuring its outcomes.
The conversation presents data science as a field that can be defined, taught, and expanded through courses and programs. It moves from a basic description of the discipline to the practical challenge of reaching a wider audience, then compares R and Python in a way that favors…
A practical look at image manipulation, research integrity, and the vigilance science still requires.
The episode treats inappropriate image duplication in research papers as a practical detection problem, and that is where it is strongest. Dr.
Charts can be accurate and still lead viewers to the wrong conclusion.
Alberto Cairo treats data visualization as a question of literacy and purpose, not decoration. He shows how charts can mislead when scale is handled carelessly, and why a graphic should be judged by what it is meant to show.
A municipal finance story about using public data to push government action.
Arnaldo Cruz's conversation with Rafael Arizari traces practical data work in Puerto Rico, moving from the U.S. Census and Chicago's Mayor's Office Workforce Development to the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico.
A sober look at how polls and fundamentals shape election forecasting.
Andrew Gelman treats election forecasting as a statistical problem rather than a pundit sport, which gives the discussion a sharper edge. He argues that polls and fundamentals have to be read together, and he keeps returning to the fact that even with a lot of polling, model…
Mushroom culture from soil to society.
Clear neuroscience for curious minds.
Plant papers, jokes, and useful uncertainty.
Weed science, from genomes to paddocks.
Biomedical careers, described from the inside.
Human stakes behind biomedical progress.
Dana-Farber Data Science Zoominar host Raphael Irizarry talks with Daniella Witten, a University of Washington professor of statistics and biostatistics, about the role of statistical learning in applied statistics.
["Dana-Farber Cancer Institute's Data Science Zoominar centers on Rafael Irizarry's conversation with Dr.
Dana-Farber's Data Science Zoominar has Rafael Irizarry speaking with Jeff Leake of Johns Hopkins School of Public Health about teaching data science to the masses.
Alberto Cairo discusses data visualization literacy, covering his books, common mistakes in charts, and the importance of design in communication.
Arnaldo Cruz says Abre Puerto Rico turned 78 municipal financial statements into public A-F grades after the controller kept the files in boxes.
["Dana-Farber's Data Science Zoominar pairs Rafael Irizarry with Andrew Gelman on election forecasting after the 2020 U.S.
Emma Benn argues that diversity means asking “who is not at the table,” including intersecting identities rather than counting only women or racial groups.
Timothy Rebbeck tells Rafael Arizari that decades of large prostate-cancer cohorts have yielded few established risk factors beyond age, race, family history, genetics, height, and obesity for aggressive disease.