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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan

@lucystats.bsky.social
5.6K followers 178 following 347 posts

Biostatistician • Associate Prof @ Wake Forest University • former postdoc @ Hopkins Biostat • PhD @ Vandy Biostat • 🎙 Casual Inference • lucymcgowan.com

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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 10h
Proud member of team “waste more time”, we have mugs!
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
See more details here: regressiontothemeangirls.com/posts/06-the... And listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/7mcX...
Results showing when pink marshmallows are different people can tell
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Down here it’s our time spring breakers
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
like this, I think? But (if I understand the gist!) yes, I keep seeing this in my classes where when I try to break things under most reasonable conditions I have trouble 😆, most recently in linear regression, prior to that, complete case analyses when only missing covariates 🙈
Type 1 error varying baseline prob
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Also featuring tidy data brass knuckles…in case of emergency 🤣
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
🎙️ Today on Regression to the Mean Girls @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social & I chat with @hadley.nz about an over-engineered solution to purchase some beautiful art!
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
On why I ♥️ Severance
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
Thank you to everyone who came & for all the great discussion after! You can find: 🎞️ my slides here: www.lucymcgowan.com/talk/asa_joi... 📄 our article here: arxiv.org/abs/2512.07739
Lucy presenting a slide that says “My favorite things practical application and cute math”
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
We love our grads!! 👩‍🎓Congratulations! We can’t wait to hear about all of the exciting things you do next! #wfugrad @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social
Sarah hugging Grayson yay!!
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 12/05/2026
I have LOVED getting to know so many brilliant folks at the Workshop on Applied Statistics in Agriculture & Natural Resources! Thank you so much for the invitation! My talk today was about the “causal gap” 🎞️ Slides here: www.lucymcgowan.com/talk/keynote...
The workshop attendees and me in a dress that matches my slides!
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 16/11/2025
Saw Jen Tullock’s amazing show and was so enamored throughout that I snapped not a single photo, but got to chat after for a bit with the brilliant @hamburgerwaiter.bsky.social …we did discuss elevator pitches 👀😅
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
So proud of @ashleymullan.bsky.social -- featured on the cover of @significancemag.bsky.social! Check out her beautiful interrupted time series plot 😍
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
I am SO enjoying celebrating International Day of Women in Statistics & Data Science by attending #IDWSDS2025 My first talk of the day: The Art of Data Refinement: Severance Analyses 🎞️ Slides: lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-talk/ (All made in Quarto ♥️) Here is a sneak peak:
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 19/09/2025
Some corrected headlines 🙏
MMR and V separately, as is common in this age group, is still recommended and available MMR and V separately, as is common in this age group, is still recommended and available MMR and V separately, as is common in this age group, is still recommended and available
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 23/08/2025
My extremely talented baby sister was featured in this @redbull.com documentary that was released today! watch the whole thing here 👇 www.soundsofredbull.com/scoring-chal... listen to more of Teesa’s music: open.spotify.com/artist/2CttZ... www.teesadagostino.com
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 13/08/2025
Whelp 😂
Trying to run tiny gpt-oss on Mac and failing
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 10/08/2025
Excited for @davisvaughan.bsky.social & my talk tomorrow in which we will demo a shiny app we ✨ vibe coded ✨ up today, if you're at #user2025 stop by Gross at 10:30a tomorrow. Sneak peak 👇
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 08/08/2025
The #JSM2025 roasts getting a reprise at @hadley.nz’s #user2025 keynote 😂
roast your colleagues

Jeff Leek’s idea of a wild night is running a bootstrapped simulation — twice.

Git doesn’t give Jenny merge conflicts; it opens an issue with a minimal reprex and apologizes.

Mine’s rubrics are more detailed than most grant proposals — by the time you finish reading them, the semester’s over.

Roger believes in reproducibility — which is great, because his jokes in lecture reproducibly bomb every time
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 06/08/2025
Huge congratulations to two of my favorite colleagues @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social & Staci Hepler on their SUCH well deserved CWS awards at #JSM2025 👏 👏
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 08/07/2025
Excuse the terrible annotation from my phone (😂) but I think I would have expected the categorical to look more like this:
Bad depiction of categorical age having constant effects within year
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
And here is what happens with mean imputation, the slope is the same:
Plot that shows points with imputed values and the slopes from regression with out without observed values
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Maybe a visual will help, here is what is happening with complete case. Even though X is missing NOT at random, we still recover the correct E[Y|X] when just using the observed Xs because the missingness is not related to Y.
Plot showing points missing (and not) and the same slope in both even though missing is not at random (with respect to X)
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
Maybe a simple simulation would help? Here I have Y which has a linear relationship with X such that the true effect is 2. X is missing not at random such that when X > 0 it is missing. I get 2 when I fit the model with just the observed Xs after listwise deletion and after mean imputation
``` r
n <- 10000
effect <- 2
x <- rnorm(n)
y <- effect * x + rnorm(n)
x_obs <- ifelse(x > 0, NA, x)

## truth (fully observed)
lm(y ~ x)
#> 
#> Call:
#> lm(formula = y ~ x)
#> 
#> Coefficients:
#> (Intercept)            x  
#>    0.002869     2.012952

## listwise deletion
lm(y ~ x_obs)
#> 
#> Call:
#> lm(formula = y ~ x_obs)
#> 
#> Coefficients:
#> (Intercept)        x_obs  
#>   -0.003714     2.026903

## mean imputation
x_imp <- ifelse(is.na(x_obs), mean(x_obs, na.rm = TRUE), x_obs)
lm(y ~ x_imp)
#> 
#> Call:
#> lm(formula = y ~ x_imp)
#> 
#> Coefficients:
#> (Intercept)        x_imp  
#>       1.639        2.027
```

<sup>Created on 2025-06-25 with [reprex v2.1.1](https://reprex.tidyverse.org)</sup>
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 25/06/2025
I’m not even sure about the power! I’ve had trouble coming up with a good sim where it noticeably helps, here’s a quick one I just did (on my phone so there are probably bugs 😂) but complete case also has smaller standard errors!
sim <- function() {
n <- 100
x1 <- rnorm(n)
x2 <- rnorm(n)
y <- x1 + x2 + rnorm(n)
x1_obs <- ifelse(x1 > 0, NA, x1)
x2_obs <- ifelse(x2 > 0, NA, x2)  
d <- data.frame(y, x1_obs, x2_obs)

cc <- broom::tidy(lm(y ~ x1_obs + x2_obs, data = d))
m <- mice::mice(d, print = F, method = "norm")  
imp <- broom::tidy(mice::pool(with(m, lm(y ~ x1_obs + x2_obs))), conf.int = T) 

data.frame(
cc = cc[2, "std.error"],
imp = imp[2, "std.error"]
) 
}
o <- purrr::map_df(1:100, ~sim())
set.seed(1)
mean(o$std.err)
#> [1] 0.3642946

mean(o$imp)
#> [1] 0.3741719
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
I am so excited about the slate of amazing tutorials we will have at useR this year! It’s included in your registration, check them out!

| Workshop | Instructors |
|---------|------------|
| **Causal Machine Learning in R** | Malcolm Barrett |
| **Debugging Tools for Functions in R** | E. David Aja & Shannon Pileggi |
| **From Model to Meaning: Using the marginaleffects package** | Vincent Arel-Bundock |
| **Tidy manipulation of genomic data** | Justin Landis & Michael Love |
| **Complex Survey Data Analysis with srvyr and survey** | Rebecca Powell, Isabella Velásquez & Stephanie Zimmer |
| **Getting Started with Positron: A Next-Generation IDE** | Jennifer Bryan & Julia Silge |
| **R You Out of Memory Again? Level Up with Arrow and DuckDB** | Elyse Armstrong, Jeanne McClure & Sheila Saia |
| **Teaching statistics and data science with R and GitHub** | Elijah Meyer & Maria Tackett |
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
🎓 🤰 2024 graduation ➡️ 👶 2025 graduation
Pregnant graduation photoBaby at graduation photo
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 18/05/2025
Happy Graduation Weekend from the @wakeforeststats.bsky.social faculty!!
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
Some of the causal crew (+ @sarahlotspeich.bsky.social & Staci!) congratulations! 🍾
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
😏 @libbyheeren.bsky.social reminding me of the time grad student Lucy snuck a stats joke into Ron Gilbert’s Thimbleweed Park
Ron Gilbert’s Thimbleweed Park (Library, 3rd floor, looking at the book I put in)Book titled Basu’s Theorem by Lucy D’AgostinoOn a bright summer's day, a young lad, Exbar, decided to embark on an adventure.
"I'm feeling complete and sufficient," thought Exbar, "I'm goin' fishing!" he exclaimed. So off he went to collect his fishing gear and begin his journey. Exbar was wandering along a path to the river, when he encountered a snake. This snake looked quite peculiar, almost like an s squared. "Hi. I'm Ann. Ann Ssesssillary," the oddly shaped snake hissed. "I can help you fishhhhhhh," she exclaimed.
Feeling complete and sufficient, Exbar confidently replied, "No thanks, Ann. 1 don't need YOU! In fact, I'm independent!" Exbar continued on to the river, where he promptly caught the biggest fish you've ever seen, "Ah!
A BASS!" he cried. "Oooo!" chimed in the onlookers.
And thus, Basu's theorem: any complete sufficient statistic is independent of any ancillary statistic, such as the mean and sample variance of a normal distribution.
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
And our little kid sizes Pepper’s ghost for everyone’s personal hologram, courtesy of a plastic dessert cup and overhead transparency (s/o to Joshua Ellingson for the design!)
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
Here’s our lenticular coloring page 😅
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
I made these posters with figures from Disney patents to explain the science behind how the projection systems work 🤓
Pepper’s ghost poster with patentProjection patent for Disney
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 30/03/2025
Ok this was too fun, had some ghosts hanging out on our couch, made lenticular pictures, and made kid-sized Pepper’s ghost contraptions 🙈 the kids loved it and now I need to share with all of my nerd friends 🤗
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 29/03/2025
Throwing a Pepper’s Ghost themed party for K2 tomorrow, not sure who is more excited 🙈😅
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
👀
Plot looking at average pitch for sample of Helly and Helena lines — episode 9 seems to match Helena 👀
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 18/03/2025
Coming in hot from your favorite severance-obsessed statistician (thank you, @benstiller.redhour.com)...another elevator ding analysis! Is that a B♮ we hear on the severed floor? A redemption arc coming for our girl Helena? mdr.lucymcgowan.com
Analysis of tones we hear in Severance...could Helena be back on the severed floor?
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Our grandparents survived the measles, what’s the big deal? h/t @kjhealy.co
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Sweet Vitriol was great TV
Rockefeller man standing up for something bold like saying a tv episode was actually good!!
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Milchick's words average 1.34 syllables (95% CI: 1.33-1.34); everyone else is close behind (1.28, 95% CI: 1.28-1.28). While technically statistically significant, I do not think it is scientifically meaningful, perhaps Lumon needs a lesson in the difference. We will be taking this to the board.
Comparison of syllables - Milchick vs everyone else (very similar!)

https://lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/
https://lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/analysis-uses-too-many-big-words/
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
Ok, maybe the word cloud is not the best way to see this (although we are just doing the same analysis Lumon claims to!), let's instead compare the percentage of multisyllabic words Milchick uses compared to the rest of the characters. lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/... 3/
Comparison of syllables - Milchick vs everyone else (very similar!)

https://lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/
https://lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/analysis-uses-too-many-big-words/
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
I've taken the transcripts from the 14 episodes and extracted Milchick's dialogue to create this word cloud. Here's the thing, I don't think there are that many big words! We are assuming that on screen dialogue is representative of how he speaks off screen 2/ lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/...
Word cloud of Milchick's words -- not too big!
https://lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/
https://lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/analysis-uses-too-many-big-words/
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
I've got a bone to pick with Lumon over their performance review for our favorite [alleged] sesquipedalian, Milchick Supposedly he is using too many big words? And they've created a word cloud to prove it? Two can play that game! 1/ #Severance
"Uses too many words" says Lumon -- and proceeds to show a ...wordcloud??

(from Severance)
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
An evening well spent timing this little music (written by my extremely talented baby sister!) behind my data viz 🎶 as we await episode four 🥂 #severance #ortbo 🎶 www.teesadagostino.com 📊 lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
Ok this might be my favorite one so far, looking at who is speaking (and how many words they say) at each minute by episode. Check out S2E2, its all segmented because the outies never speak with each other! lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/... #Severance
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
Trying to build a database of #Severance employee ids and hitting some snags 👀 pls vote below: 🙏 this is a great way to spend your time convalescing from the flu 😬 yikes
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
Looking for your own Lumon badge? Look no further. lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/... #Severance (s/o: @tangandhara.bsky.social)
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
Old report claims continuous treatment benefit of tamiflu with 3-4 day reduction if started in 12 hrs (way different than <1 day for 48 hrs) & relevant with rapid tests, but I can’t find a peer reviewed article — infectious disease #episky friends, do y’all know one? www.gilead.com/news/news-de....
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 01/02/2025
little sentiment profiles for each #Severance episode the work is mysterious and important 💚🩵🩶 lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/...
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
a bit more #Severance data please enjoy all analyses equally 👉 lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr-website/ and for my #rstats friends: 👉 lucymcgowan.github.io/mdr/
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Lucy D’Agostino McGowan @lucystats.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
Happy #Severance night! Here’s a fun little analysis predicting when characters joined Lumon based on their badge employee codes 😏
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