Salt Lake Tribune Data Columnist Andy Larsen Speaks Thursday, Oct. 21 at USU

Journalist Andy Larsen’s Twitter bio reads, “Utah Jazz & NBA beat writer for The Salt Lake Tribune. Then the pandemic happened, and now I’m also a data columnist for the Trib.”

And so it goes: The lifelong Utahn, who’s been covering the Utah Jazz since 2013, may seem an unlikely candidate for scientific data interpreter, but the Westminster College grad’s regular column, detailing the spread of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants, masking controversies, social distancing, vaccines and boosters, has become a pandemic-era, must-read staple.

Larsen speaks at Utah State University Thursday, Oct. 21, as a featured speaker for the USU Department of Mathematics and Statistics’ 2021-22 Colloquium Series. He presents “Making Data Work: How to Turn Numbers into Knowledge” at 3:30 p.m. in the Eccles Conference Center (ECC), Rooms 311-313.

Larsen’s talk, free and open to all, will also be broadcast via Zoom.

“Andy Larsen’s job is to turn numbers into insights for a general audience,” says Luis Gordillo, associate department head and associate professor for Mathematics and Statistics. “He’ll describe how he presents data in an intuitive way, using both words and graphics.”

For more information, contact the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at 435-797-0600.