RandomICEation

It’s hardly random that Kari Lock skated her way into Duke's department of statistical sciences.

The newly appointed assistant professor of the practice of statistics, Lock spent seven years as a professional ice skater before developing a new theoretical framework for randomization in scientific experiments.

“[Randomization] is kind of the backbone of scientific research,” Lock said.

As a graduate student at Harvard University, Lock focused her research on improving randomization in randomized experiments—experiments designed to determine causation between two or more factors.

“If you want to see whether something causes something else, you randomly determine who gets which level of the variable, and see whether there’s an effect,” said Lock.

In a randomized experiment, it is possible that experimental groups will not be diverse enough after initial randomization efforts, she said.

“My research is looking at a way of checking [experimental group compositions] before [one does] the experiment, and [re-randomizing] if you get a bad randomization,” said Lock.

Lock was a competitive figure skater until she graduated high school, when she began performing professionally. For two years she toured full-time with a show called Holiday on Ice, traveling around Europe, Asia and Central America.

Lock believes her work can help Duke faculty improve their research.

“I’m hoping to work with people in other departments because there are many different disciplines that work with randomization,” she said.