David L. Banks

I began as an anthropology major, but my interests evolved into statistics when I realized that the only anthropological research that struck me as substantive involved the statistical analysis of ethnographic data. This trajectory persists, in that I am keenly interested in extending statistical strategies into domains that are far too muddled for the tight elegance of classical inferential theory. This has led to a research emphasis on computer-intensive statistical methodologies, which attempt to substitute massive calculation for the restrictive models used in conventional statistics. Often this additionally makes use of Bayesian methods, which take account of expert knowledge about the problem.

Some of my other recent applied work includes applications to social network structures, building a database of biographical characteristics of eminent Victorians, the tuna/dolphin problem, human rights data, and a variety of problems in industrial statistics.

Some Related Publications

Banks, D.L. (1993). "Is Industrial Statistics Out of Control?"; to appear in Statistical Science.

Banks, D.L. (1989). "Patterns of Oppression: An Exploratory Analysis of Human Rights Data," Journal of the American Statistical Association, 84, pp. 674-681.

Banks, D.L. (1989). "Bootstrapping--II," in Encyclopedia of Statistical Science, 10, pp. 17-22, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, N.Y.