Distinguished Professor Hollylynne Lee Receives 2023 William D. Warde Statistics Education Award

Hollylynne Lee, a Distinguished Professor of mathematics and statistics education in NC State’s College of Education, has been named the recipient of the 2023 William D. Warde Statistics Education Award. 

Mu Sigma Rho is the national honorary society for statistics that aims to promote and encourage scholarly activity in statistics and recognizes outstanding achievement among the students and instructional staff at eligible academic institutions.

Recipients of the William D. Warde Statistics Education Award display evidence of excellence in classroom teaching in statistics and a lifetime devotion to the field of statistics education. College of Education Dean Paola Sztajn, nominated Lee for the award. There have been two previous winners of the award from NC State Department of Statistics: Webster West (2015) and Bill Swallow (2007).

“I have focused so much of my career on research and teaching in statistics education and here at NC State I have taught students from many different disciplines,” she said. “I look forward to continuing to work across the College of Education and Department of Statistics in both research and teaching endeavors. Together, we have all contributed significantly to making NC State the place to be to focus on statistics education, in scholarship and teaching.” 

Lee, who is the 2022 recipient of Baylor University’s prestigious Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching, spent the spring of 2023 teaching in residence at Baylor University. In spring 2024, she will teach a special section of ST101: Introductory Statistics for NC State undergraduates preparing to be elementary and middle school teachers that will be modeled after a course she taught while at Baylor. 

She has also taught ST/EMS 519: Teaching and Learning Statistical Thinking for students across disciplines at NC State and is the director of the Hub for Innovation and Research in Statistics Education (Hi-RiSE) at the Friday Institute. 

In addition to her teaching, Lee is transforming the field of statistics education through several grant-funded research projects. 

Most recently, she, along with Friday Institute for Educational Innovation Senior Research Scholar Gemma Mojica, received a $2.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to expand the Enhancing Data Science and Statistics Teacher Education through E-Modules (ESTEEM) project, which provides free, accessible tools that allow pre-service middle and high school mathematics teachers to engage with meaningful materials and has been used in courses by more than 150 teacher educators across the country. This new project is bringing together a network of faculty across institutions and professional organizations to work toward transforming undergraduate teacher preparation in data science and statistics.

They have also developed Invigorating Statistics and Data Science Teaching through Professional Learning (InSTEP), a ​​free, personalized online learning platform that allows teachers in grades 6-12+ to develop their expertise in teaching statistics and data science.

Over the course of these and other projects, Lee’s work has impacted more than 7,000 pre-service teachers and 8,000 educators across all 50 states and in more than 100 countries around the world.