Sandy Zabell
Director of Undergraduate Studies for Statistics; Professor of Mathematics and Statistics and Data Science, Affiliated Faculty Department of Philosophy, Faculty member Science in Human Culture Program, Faculty member CIERA
- zabell@math.northwestern.edu
- 847-491-5564
- Lunt 227
Research Interests
My principal research interests revolve around mathematical probability (in particular, large deviation theory) and Bayesian statistics (in particular, the study of exchangeability). I am also interested in the history, philosophical foundations, and legal applications of probability and statistics.
My primary applied interest is DNA identification evidence, and more generally the use of science in law. My current historical interest is the use of cryptography during WWII.
Recent Publications
Symmetry and its Discontents. Book, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
On Student's 1908 paper "The probable error of the mean". Special invited paper, Journal of the American Statistical Association 103 (2008), pp.1--7.
Statistics at Bletchley Park. In Breaking Teleprinter Ciphers at Bletchley Park: An edition of I.J. Good, Michie and G. Timms: General Report on Tunny with Emphasis on Statistical Methods (1945), (W. Diffie, J. V. Field, and J. A. Reeds, eds.), Wiley–IEEE Press (2015), pp. lxxv-ci.
Symmetry arguments in probability. In The Oxford Handbook of Probability and Philosophy (Alan Hajek and Christopher Hitchcock, eds.), Oxford University Press, 2016, Chapter 15 (pp. 315–338).
German mathematicians and cryptology in WWII. Cryptologia 44 (2020), pp. 97–171. [Joint with Frode Weierud.]