“Today’s events are designed for recognition, celebration, and appreciation of the numerous contributors to Fordham’s research accomplishments in the past two years,” said George Hong, Ph.D., chief research officer and associate vice president for academic affairs.

Hong said that Fordham has received about $16 million in faculty grants over the past nine months, which is an increase of 50.3% compared to the same period last year.

“As a research university, Fordham is committed to excellence in the creation of knowledge and is in constant pursuit of new lines of inquiry,” said Joseph McShane, S.J., president of Fordham, said during the virtual celebration. “Our faculty continue to distinguish themselves in this area. Today, today we highlight the truly extraordinary breadth and depth of their work.”

Earning Honors

Ten faculty members, representing two years of winners due to cancellations last year from the COVID-19 pandemic, were recognized with distinguished research awards.

“The distinguished research awards provide us with an opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of our most prolific colleagues, give visibility to the research achievements, and inspire others to follow in their footsteps,” Provost Dennis Jacobs said.

Recipients included Yuko Miki, associate professor of history and associate director of Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALSI), whose work focuses on Black and indigenous people in Brazil and the wider Atlantic world in the 19th century; David Budescu, Ph.D., Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, whose work has been on quantifying, judging, and communicating uncertainty; and, in the junior faculty category, Santiago Mejia, Ph.D., assistant professor of law and ethics in the Gabelli School of Business, whose work examines shareholder primacy and Socratic ignorance and its implications to applied ethics. (See below for a full list of recipients).

Diving Deeper

Eleven other faculty members presented in their recently published work in the humanities, social sciences, and interdisciplinary studies.

Jews and New York: ‘Virtually Identical’

Images of Jewish people and New York are inextricably tied together, according to Daniel Soyer, Ph.D., professor of history and co-author of Jewish New York: The Remarkable Story of a City and a People (NYU Press, 2017).

“The popular imagination associated Jews with New York—food names like deli and bagels … attitudes and manner, like speed, brusqueness, irony, and sarcasm; with certain industries—the garment industry, banking, or entertainment,” he said. “

Soyer quoted comedian Lenny Bruce, who joked, “the Jewish and New York essences are virtually identical, right?”

Soyer’s book examines the history of Jewish people in New York and their relationship to the city from 1654 to the current day. Other presentations included S. Elizabeth Penry, Ph.D., associate professor of history, on her book The People Are King: The Making of an Indigenous Andean Politics (Oxford University Press, 2019), and Kirk Bingaman, Ph.D., professor of pastoral mental health counseling in the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education, on his book Pastoral and Spiritual Care in a Digital Age: The Future Is Now (Lexington Books, 2018).

Focus on Cities: The Reality Beyond the Politics

Annika Hinze, Ph.D, associate professor of political science and director of the Urban Studies Program, talked about her most recent work on the 10th and 11th editions of City Politics: The Political Economy of Urban America (Routledge, 11th edition forthcoming). She focused on how cities were portrayed by the Trump Administration versus what was happening on the ground.

“The realities of cities are really quite different—we’re not really talking about inner cities anymore,” she said. “Cities are, in many ways, mosaics of rich and poor. And yes, there are stark wealth discrepancies, growing pockets of poverty in cities, but there are also enormous oases of wealth in cities.”

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Hinze’s latest edition will show how urban density did not contribute to the spread of COVID-19, as many people thought, but rather it was overcrowding and concentrated poverty in cities that led to accelerated spread..

Other presentations included Nicholas Tampio, Ph.D., professor of political science, on his book Common Core: National Education Standards and the Threat to Democracy (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018); Margo Jackson, Ph.D., professor and chair of the division of psychological and educational services in the Graduate School of Education on her book Career Development Interventions for Social Justice: Addressing Needs Across the Lifespan in Educational, Community, and Employment Contexts (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019); and Clara Rodriguez, Ph.D., professor of sociology on her book America, As Seen on TV: How Television Shapes Immigrant Expectations Around the Globe (NYU Press, 2018).

A Look into Migration

In her book Migration Crises and the Structure of International Cooperation (University of Georgia Press, 2019), Sarah Lockhart, Ph.D. assistant professor of political science, examined how countries often have agreements in place to manage the flow of trade, capital, and communication, but not people. While her work in this book specifically focused on voluntary migration, it also had implications for the impacts on forced migration and the lack of cooperation among nations .

“I actually have really serious concerns about the extent of cooperation … on measures of control, and what that means for the future, when states are better and better at controlling their borders, especially in the developing world,” she said. “And what does that mean for people when there are crises and there needs to be that kind of release valve of movement?”

Other presentations included: Tina Maschi, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate School of Social Service, on her book Forensic Social Work: A Psychosocial Legal Approach to Diverse Criminal Justice Populations and Settings (Springer Publishing Company, 2017), and Tanya Hernández, J.D., professor of law on her book Multiracials and Civil Rights: Mixed-Race Stories of Discrimination (NYU Press, 2018).

Sharing Reflections

The day’s keynote speakers—Daniel Alexander Jones, professor of theatre and 2019 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, and Tony Award winner Clint Ramos, head of design and production and assistant professor of design—shared personal reflections on how the year’s events have shaped their lives, particularly their performance and creativity.

For Jones, breathing has always been an essential part of his work after one of his earliest teachers “initiated me into the work of aligning my breath to the cyclone of emotions I felt within.” However, seeing another Black man killed recently, he said, left him unable to “take a deep breath this morning without feeling the knot in my stomach at the killing of Daunte Wright by a police officer in Minnesota.”

Jones said the work of theatre teachers and performers is affected by their lived experiences and it’s up to them to share genuine stories for their audience.

“Our concern, as theater educators, encompasses whether or not in our real-time lived experiences, we are able to enact our wholeness as human beings, whether or not we are able to breathe fully and freely as independent beings in community and as citizens in a broad and complex society,” he said.

Ramos said that he feels his ability to be fully free has been constrained by his own desire to be accepted and understood, and that’s in addition to feeling like an outsider since he immigrated here.

“I actually don’t know who I am if I don’t anchor my self-identity with being an outsider,” he said. “There isn’t a day where I am not hyper-conscious of my existence in a space that contains me. And what that container looks like. These thoughts preface every single process that informs my actions and my decisions in this country.”

Interdisciplinary Future

Both keynote speakers said that their work is often interdisciplinary, bringing other fields into theatre education. Jones said he brings history into his teaching when he makes his students study the origins of words and phrases, and that they incorporate biology when they talk about emotions and rushes of feelings, like adrenaline.

That message of interdisciplinary connections summed up the day, according to Jonathan Crystal, vice provost.

“Another important purpose was really to hear what one another is working on and what they’re doing research on,” he said. “And it’s really great to have a place to come listen to colleagues talk about their research and find out that there are these points of overlap, and hopefully, it will result in some interdisciplinary activity over the next year.”

Distinguished Research Award Recipients

Humanities
2020: Kathryn Reklis, Ph.D., associate professor of theology, whose work included a project sponsored by the Henry Luce Foundation on Shaker art, design, and religion.
2021: Yuko Miki, Ph.D., associate professor of history and associate director of Latin American and Latinx Studies (LALSI), whose work is on Black and indigenous people in Brazil and the wider Atlantic world in the 19th century.

Interdisciplinary Studies
2020: Yi Ding, Ph.D., professor of school psychology in the Graduate School of Education, who received a $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education for a training program for school psychologists and early childhood special education teachers.
2021: Sophie Mitra, Ph.D., professor of Economics and co-director of the Disability Studies Minor, whose recent work includes documenting and understanding economic insecurity and identifying policies that combat it.

Sciences and Mathematics
2020: Thaier Hayajneh, Ph.D., professor of computer and information sciences and founder director of Fordham Center of Cybersecurity, whose $3 million grant from the National Security Agency will allow Fordham to help Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions build their own cybersecurity programs.
2021: Joshua Schrier, Ph.D., Kim B. and Stephen E. Bepler Chair and professor of chemistry, who highlighted his $7.4 million project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency on perovskites.

Social Sciences
2020: Iftekhar Hasan, Ph.D., university professor and E. Gerald Corrigan Chair in International Business and Finance, whose recent work has included the examination of the role of female leadership in mayoral positions and resilience of local societies to crises.
2021: David Budescu, Ph.D., Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, whose work has been on quantifying, judging, and communicating uncertainty.

Junior Faculty
2020: Asato Ikeda, Ph.D., associate professor of art history, who published The Politics of Painting, Facism, and Japanese Art During WWII.
2021: Santiago Mejia, Ph.D., assistant professor of law and ethics in the Gabelli School of Business, whose work focuses on shareholder primacy and Socratic ignorance and its implications to applied ethics.

On Sept. 28, 2015, Robert J. Sternberg, PhD, professor of human development at Cornell University, delivered the 2015 Anastasi Lecture, discussing how psychology has transformed an invented concept, intelligence, into one that is treated as though it has been discovered–with largely unfortunate results. He argued that we, in the United States, treat intelligence as a construct that makes some sense within the context of Western-style schools, but not within the range of world cultures.

]]> 28950 https://now.fordham.edu/inside-fordham/how-does-the-public-perceive-climate-change/ Tue, 22 Apr 2014 16:56:21 +0000 http://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=28823  

David Budescu, Ph.D., the Anne Anastasi Chair in Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology. Photo by Chris Taggart

Scientists describing phenomena such as global warming would be better served by using both numbers and verbal terms to communicate their findings, according to a new study by a group of researchers led by a Fordham University professor.

David Budescu, Ph.D., the Anne Anastasi Chair in Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, teamed up with researchers in 24 countries to measure how well the public understands phrases such as very likely, likely,unlikely and very unlikely when reading the findings of climate change research. These terms are among seven simple qualifiers used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to describe scientists’ research findings to policymakers and the public.

In the context of the reports, each term is meant to correspond to a range of numerical probabilities (e.g., very likely refers to 90 percent or higher probability, and unlikelymeans 33 percent or lower  probability).

But Budescu’s research revealed that the public usually interprets the verbal terms in a conservative fashion – meaning less extreme, and closer to 50 percent than the scientists had intended.

The study asked over 11,000 volunteers in 24 countries (and in 17 different languages) to provide their interpretations of a the intended meaning and possible range of 8 sentences form the IPCC report that included the various phrases. For example, one sentence read: “It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves, and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.” Only a small minority of the participants interpreted the probability of that statement consistent with IPCC guidelines (over 90 percent), and the vast majority interpreted the term to convey a probability in around 70 percent.

However, supplementing the verbal phrases with numbers considerably improved communication, the report said. The benefits of the dual presentation (words + numbers) were especially large for the most extreme words where it doubled the rate of interpretations consistent with the IPCC guidelines

These findings replicate previous results of Budescu and colleagues in US samples. Climate change is a global problem and the IPCC is an international body that seeks to reach people in all countries, and cultures. The new study shows that the problem – systematic misinterpretation of the communication –  is also universal, and the proposed solution – combining numbers and verbal terms – also works in every country. In fact, one of the most encouraging results of the study was the finding that the revised presentation format increased the agreement between the interpretation of the various sentences across countries and languages and is likely to facilitate communication of experts and policy makers.

The researchers recommended that the IPCC use both words and numbers to communicate uncertainty and probability in all its future reports.  This alternative communication format is more flexible, it appeals to all — people who prefer numerical presentations and those who favor natural language – and would improve greatly the public’s understanding of the IPCC reports’ findings. The results of the study have been published in the April 20 edition of Nature Climate Change.

Before the campaign, the University counted 26 endowed chairs; as of September 2013, that number stands at 67, with many created through the generous investments of individual and institutional donors. These investments offer resources to attract noted scholars to the University to teach and interact with students and carry out research.

Although some of the newly established chairs have yet to be filled, the sheer number and variety of fields they encompass, from business and law to religion to the arts and sciences, are a true testament to the generosity of the Fordham family.

The following are a few chairs funded as a result of the campaign.

Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology

David V. Budescu, the Anastasi chair.

Established with a bequest created in Anastasi’s name, this chair enhances the legacy of the former Fordham professor whose book,Psychological Testing (Macmillan, 1954) is considered by many to be the definitive text in the field of testing.

Anastasi was a member of the Fordham faculty from 1947 to 1985 and chair of the Department of Psychology. In 1987, she received the National Medal of Science from President Ronald Reagan.

David V. Budescu, Ph.D., a psychologist who has researched the effects of uncertainty on human judgment and decision-making, was installed in the chair in December 2008.

Edward and Marilyn Bellet Chair in Legal Ethics, Morality, and Religion

Established in 2005 by Sally J. Bellet, LAW ’76, the chair was named for Bellet’s parents. Bellet’s grandfather, Louis Stein, Law ’26, in 1976 founded the Louis Stein Center for Law and Ethics at Fordham Law, which has achieved enormous success in matters related to public service and ethics.

Russell Pearce, the current holder of the chair, joined the Fordham faculty in 1990, and currently teaches, writes and lectures in the field of professional responsibility. He is also the co-director of the Stein Center.

Barbara Hilkert Andolsen, the Buckman chair, with benefactor James Buckman.

James and Nancy Buckman Chair in Applied Christian Ethics

Established through a gift from James Buckman, FCRH ’66, former vice chairman of York Capital Management, and his wife, Nancy M. Buckman, this theology chair was established as a way to strengthen philosophy and theology, areas in which, James Buckman said, Jesuit universities “act as the lights of the world.”

Barbara Hilkert Andolsen, Ph.D., a feminist theologian and ethics scholar, was installed in the chair in a ceremony in February 2009.

Mary Higgins Clark Chair in Creative Writing

Mary Higgins Clark, FCLC ’79, whose 42 books have sold more than 100 million copies in the United States alone, pledged in 2013 to create the Mary Higgins Clark Chair in Creative Writing.

The gift will make it possible for Fordham to hire a professor of creative writing within the Department of English. The chair will be a visiting appointment for a limited term, offered to a distinguished writer drawn from a variety of genres, to lead writing workshops and teach seminars and master classes to upper-level undergraduates or graduate students.
The first holder of the chair will be announced in the spring of 2015.

Iftekhar Hasan, the Corrigan chair.

E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., Chair in International Business and Finance

E. Gerald Corrigan, Ph.D., GSAS ’65, ’71, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and managing director at Goldman Sachs, established the chair in 2007 with a gift to increase the Graduate School of Business Administration’s (GBA) talent in global finance and economic issues. The Corrigan gift further endowed the E. Gerald Corrigan Endowed Scholarship Fund at Fordham College at Rose Hill, which has provided financial support to minority students for nearly a decade.

Iftekhar Hasan, Ph.D., whose expertise is in the areas of corporate finance, entrepreneurial finance, and capital markets, was formally installed as the inaugural holder of the chair in February 2012.

Archbishop Demetrios Chair in Orthodox Theology and Culture

This chair was created thanks to a February 2009 gift from the Jaharis Family Foundation, Inc., a philanthropy that provides grants to arts, cultural, and religious institutions, and Mary and Michael Jaharis. It marked a milestone for Orthodox studies in the Western Hemisphere and ensured resources for a chair in this discipline in perpetuity at Fordham.

The new chair was celebrated by members of the Fordham and Orthodox Christian communities at the November 2013 installation ceremony for Aristotle Papanikolaou, Ph.D., a professor of theology and the senior fellow and co-founder of Fordham’s Orthodox Christian Studies Center. A second chair will be installed in 2015.

Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., Chair in Catholic Theology

A gift in November 2009 from Vincent Viola, PAR, chairman of Virtu Management, LLC, and his wife, Teresa, created an endowed professorship in honor of Cardinal Dulles, who was the first American to become a cardinal who was not a bishop, and the only cardinal to teach on Fordham’s staff.

In January 2011, the chair was filled by Terrence W. Tilley, Ph.D., professor of theology and then-chair of the department. At the installation ceremony, he delivered “Sentire cum Ecclesia: Thinking With and for the Church.” His talk explored ways to understand St. Ignatius Loyola’s “Rules for Thinking with the Church” in the context of Cardinal Dulles’ influential book Models of the Church(Doubleday, 1974).

Gabelli Professor of Security Analysis

As part of his 2011 transformative $25 million gift, Mario Gabelli, GSB ’65, devoted funds toward a new faculty position that will be tasked with heading the new Gabelli Center for Global Security Analysis.

In addition, Gabelli’s matching gift challenge resulted in five additional chairs for the business school, enhancing its strength across a range of disciplines:
• Grose Family Endowed Chair in Business
• William J. Loschert Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship
• Robert B. McKeon Endowed Faculty Chair in Business
• Edward M. Stroz/Sara A. Spooner Endowed Chair in Accounting
• Toppeta Family Chair in Global Financial Markets (see below)

Saul Cornell, the Guenther chair, and Martin Flaherty, the Leitner chair.

Paul and Diane Guenther Chair in American History

Paul Guenther, FCRH ’62, former president of the investment firm PaineWebber, and a trustee emeritus of the University, established the chair in 2008 through gifts made by him and his wife, Diane. The Guenthers were born and raised (and met) in Inwood, Manhattan, while Saul Cornell, Ph.D., the chair’s inaugural holder, was born and raised in the Coney Island area of Brooklyn.

For his inaugural address, Cornell kept the New York City connection alive with “The Perils of Popular Constitutionalism: Riding the D Train with James Madison,” which detailed the Anti-Federalists of Colonial times.

Leitner Chairs in International Human Rights

A gift from James Leitner, LAW ’82, in 2007, allowed the law school to establish two chairs in international human rights. Martin Flaherty and Thomas Lee are holders of the Leitner Chairs.

Shvidler Chair in Judaic Studies

A gift from Eugene Shvidler, GBA ’92, made in February 2013 provided for the establishment of the Shvidler Chair of Judaic Studies in the Department of Theology.

Shvidler, the chairman of Millhouse LLC, an investment and asset management company, received a master’s degree in mathematics from the Gubkin Institute of Petrochemicals and Natural Gas as well as an M.B.A. and master’s degree in international taxation from Fordham’s GBA.

A search is currently under way among academics with distinguished records of research and scholarship in Rabbinic and/or later religious developments within the Jewish tradition.

James R. Lothian, the Topetta chair.

Toppeta Family Chair in Global Financial Markets

Answering the matching challenge of Mario Gabelli, William Toppeta, FCRH ’70, and his wife Debra provided the funds for this chair, which in April 2012 was awarded to James R. Lothian, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Finance in the Fordham Schools of Business. Toppeta is a senior advisor at Promontory Financial Group.

Lothian, who joined the Fordham faculty in 1990, researches international finance, monetary economics (including monetary policy), financial history—both U.S. and international—and the incidence and international transmission of economic disturbances.

Denzel Washington Endowed Chair in Theatre

Joe Morton and Phylicia Rashad, Denzel Washington chairs.

In March 2011, the contributions of Academy Award-winning actor Denzel Washington, FCLC ’77, endowed both a chair in theater and a scholarship fund for undergraduate students studying theater.

The revolving chair has already been occupied by Tony Award-winning actress Phylicia Rashad, best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the classic sitcom The Cosby Show; Tony-nominated veteran stage, television, and film actor Joe Morton; and Tony Award-winning set designerChristine Jones.

Stanley D. Waxberg and Nikki Waxberg Chair

A gift from the Waxberg estate led to the creation of a chair at the Fordham School of Law in 2008 that was awarded to Joel Reidenberg, Ph.D., the founding Director of the law school’s Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP).

Reidenberg has held numerous administrative leadership positions for Fordham University and has become a leading voice for privacy. CLIP’s most recent report detailed the ways in which schools endanger students’ privacy through connections with private data collectors.

Can you predict the future? If so, David Budescu, Ph.D., would like to talk to you.

Budescu, the Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, is working with a team of researchers to improve the ways crowd-sourcing can be used to predict future events. The team is led by Applied Research Associates, a private research company. It includes researchers from Fordham University, the University of Maryland, University of California at Irvine, University of Michigan, Wake Forest University, University of Missouri, Ohio State University and Global Cognition, another private research firm.

The Aggregative Contingent Estimation (ACE) Program is a four-year-long, continuously updating study that started last May. Anyone with online access can join: In fact, the more volunteers the study gets, the better, because the diversity of opinions helps the team to see who can best predict urgent questions of the day related to business, national security, science and technology.

The study is being funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), under the federal Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Because intelligence analysts are often asked to forecast significant events on the basis of limited quantitative data, IARPA’s goal in the ACE Program is to dramatically enhance the accuracy, precision and timeliness of forecasts through the development of advanced elicitation, aggregation and communication techniques.

Team members are currently addressing three challenges:

• How to best elicit information from participants;

• How to develop statistical models to best combine the estimates given by participants;

• How to best present information learned in the most efficient and informative ways to users.

Budescu’s group at Fordham is focusing on two issues in particular: How to present findings to decision makers, and how to ask people to make conditional forecasts.

As an example of the first issue, 200 volunteers might answer a question along the lines of “Will there be a major change in the government of Cuba during the next 12 months?”

Eventually, said Budescu, the event will materialize, and researchers will know the true answer.

“But people often need to make decisions before the deadline,” he said.

Therefore, the research project will take the 200 forecasts for the event, and present a distribution of people’s opinions and some summaries of these forecasts.

“We’re presenting forecasting data collected on our site in a variety of graphical displays to participants,” he said. “We test the degree to which they can correctly extract statistical information, summarize the information, and get a sense of how much consensus or disagreement there is between the various forecasters about various events.”

The eventual goal, he said, is to select the graphical displays that are the easiest to understand, and which provide the most accurate information to decision makers.

The goal of Budescu’s second focus, conditional forecasting, is to make judgments simultaneously about two events that are at the moment unknown.

“Typically we ask questions of the type, ‘What’s the probability that the Dow Jones will go to 13,500 by the end of July?’” Budescu said.

But the researchers are also interested in predicting events under various contingencies. So for example, researchers might pose the question, “What is the likelihood of a certain event in Afghanistan if the United States decides to withdraw the majority of its armed forces by a particular date?”

The questions consist of a mix of ones generated by the research team and by IARPA. Since participants can choose which questions they want to answer, the researchers are not looking for participants with specific levels of education or areas of expertise.

“The key to success in crowdsourcing is to maximize diversity of opinion and diversity of information and backgrounds,” he said, “so we’re always interested in adding more participants to increase the diversity and variety of information that contributes to our group effort.”

The idea of relying on the wisdom of the masses is not new, of course—polling has been used in politics for decades. But technological advancements and the popularity of rating websites like Yelp, Trip Advisor, and Rotten Tomatoes have made projects like Budescu’s more feasible. There is value in information not only from experts, but from regular people, he said.

And finally, he emphasized that there’s fun to be had too.

“This research represents one of the rare cases where you make forecasts, and within weeks or months, the events that you’re forecasting are being resolved,
and you can evaluate how well you did,” he said.

“We have a variety of ways of scoring performance,” he said. “There’s a leader board where people are ranked, so you know how well you’re doing compared to the rest of the team.

“It gives you a sense of how well you understand how much you know, and it gives you a sense of whether you are over- or under-confident in your predictions. It’s a learning experience.”

For more information and to join the team, visit http://www.forecastingace.com

Budescu, the Anne Anastasi Professor of Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, is working with a team of researchers to improve the ways crowd-sourcing can be used to predict future events. The team is led by Applied Research Associates, a private research company. It includes researchers from Fordham University, the University of Maryland, University of California at Irvine, University of Michigan, Wake Forest University, University of Missouri, Ohio State University and Global Cognition, another private research firm.

The Aggregative Contingent Estimation (ACE) Program is a four-year-long, continuously updating study that started last May. Anyone with online access can join: In fact, the more volunteers the study gets, the better, because the diversity of opinions helps the team to see who can best predict urgent questions of the day related to business, national security, science and technology.

The study is being funded by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), under the federal Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Because intelligence analysts are often asked to forecast significant events on the basis of limited quantitative data, IARPA’s goal in the ACE Program is to dramatically enhance the accuracy, precision and timeliness of forecasts through the development of advanced elicitation, aggregation and communication techniques.

Team members are currently addressing three challenges:

• How to best elicit information from participants;

• How to develop statistical models to best combine the estimates given by participants;

• How to best present information learned in the most efficient and informative ways to users.

Budescu’s group at Fordham is focusing on two issues in particular: How to present findings to decision makers, and how to ask people to make conditional forecasts.

As an example of the first issue, 200 volunteers might answer a question along the lines of “Will there be a major change in the government of Cuba during the next 12 months?”

Eventually, said Budescu, the event will materialize, and researchers will know the true answer.

“But people often need to make decisions before the deadline,” he said.

Therefore, the research project will take the 200 forecasts for the event, and present a distribution of people’s opinions and some summaries of these forecasts.

“We’re presenting forecasting data collected on our site in a variety of graphical displays to participants,” he said. “We test the degree to which they can correctly extract statistical information, summarize the information, and get a sense of how much consensus or disagreement there is between the various forecasters about various events.”

The eventual goal, he said, is to select the graphical displays that are the easiest to understand, and which provide the most accurate information to decision makers.

The goal of Budescu’s second focus, conditional forecasting, is to make judgments simultaneously about two events that are at the moment unknown.

“Typically we ask questions of the type, ‘What’s the probability that the Dow Jones will go to 13,500 by the end of July?’” Budescu said.

But the researchers are also interested in predicting events under various contingencies. So for example, researchers might pose the question, “What is the likelihood of a certain event in Afghanistan if the United States decides to withdraw the majority of its armed forces by a particular date?”

The questions consist of a mix of ones generated by the research team and by IARPA. Since participants can choose which questions they want to answer, the researchers are not looking for participants with specific levels of education or areas of expertise.

“The key to success in crowdsourcing is to maximize diversity of opinion and diversity of information and backgrounds,” he said, “so we’re always interested in adding more participants to increase the diversity and variety of information that contributes to our group effort.”

The idea of relying on the wisdom of the masses is not new, of course—polling has been used in politics for decades. But technological advancements and the popularity of rating websites like Yelp, Trip Advisor, and Rotten Tomatoes have made projects like Budescu’s more feasible. There is value in information not only from experts, but from regular people, he said.

And finally, he emphasized that there’s fun to be had too.

“This research represents one of the rare cases where you make forecasts, and within weeks or months, the events that you’re forecasting are being resolved,
and you can evaluate how well you did,” he said.

“We have a variety of ways of scoring performance,” he said. “There’s a leader board where people are ranked, so you know how well you’re doing compared to the rest of the team.

“It gives you a sense of how well you understand how much you know, and it gives you a sense of whether you are over- or under-confident in your predictions. It’s a learning experience.”

For more information and to join the team, visit http://www.forecastingace.com

Scientists describing phenomena such as global warming would be better served by using numbers to communicate their findings rather than simply relying on verbal descriptive terms, according to a study by a Fordham University professor.

David Budescu, Ph.D., the Anne Anastasi Chair in Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, teamed up with researchers at the University of Illinois-Champaign Urbana to measure how well the public understands phrases such as virtually certain, very likely, likely, unlikely and very unlikely when reading the findings of climate change research.

These terms are among seven simple qualifiers used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to describe scientists’ research findings to policymakers and the public.

In the context of the reports, each term is meant to correspond to a range of numerical probabilities (i.e., virtually certain refers to 99 percent or higher probability, very likely refers to 90 percent or higher probability, and likely means 66 percent or higher probability).

But Budescu’s research revealed that the public usually perceived the verbal terms as meaning something less extreme than the scientists had intended.

The study asked 223 volunteers to weigh in on their interpretation of a group of 13 IPCC sentences containing the various phrases. For example, one sentence read: “It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.” Less than 5 percent of the volunteers interpreted the probability of that statement consistent with IPCC guidelines, the study showed.

For example, in another sentence, “Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years,” a quarter of all volunteers interpreted the phrase “very likely” to mean a probability lower than 70 percent rather than 90 percent.

However, supplementing the verbal phrases with numbers considerably improved communication, the report said. The researchers recommended that the IPCC use both words and numbers to communicate uncertainty and probability.

The study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, appeared in the March issue ofPsychological Science.

David Budescu, Ph.D., the Anne Anastasi Chair in Psychometrics and Quantitative Psychology, teamed up with researchers at the University of Illinois-Champaign Urbana to measure how well the public understands phrases such as virtually certain, very likely, likely, unlikelyand very unlikely when reading the findings of climate change research.

These terms are among seven simple qualifiers used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to describe scientists’ research findings to policymakers and the public.

In the context of the reports, each term is meant to correspond to a range of numerical probabilities (i.e.,virtually certain refers to 99 percent or higher probability,very likely refers to 90 percent or higher probability, andlikely means 66 percent or higher probability).

But Budescu’s research revealed that the public usually perceived the verbal terms as meaning something less extreme than the scientists had intended.

The study asked 223 volunteers to weigh in on their interpretation of a group of 13 IPCC sentences containing the various phrases. For example, one sentence read: “It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.” Less than 5 percent of the volunteers interpreted the probability of that statement consistent with IPCC guidelines, the study showed.

For example, in another sentence, “Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years,” a quarter of all volunteers interpreted the phrase “very likely” to mean a probability lower than 70 percent rather than 90 percent.

“The paradoxical . . . consequences of the ‘one size fits all’ solution adopted by the IPCC are that the report may lead to underestimation of the magnitude of the problems being discussed,” Budescu and colleagues wrote.

However, supplementing the verbal phrases with numbers considerably improved communication, the report said. The researchers recommended that the IPCC use both words and numbers to communicate uncertainty and probability.

The study, which was funded by the National Science Foundation, appeared in the March issue ofPsychological Science.