About me
I am an assistant professor at the Methodology & Statistics unit of the Institute of Psychology at Leiden University. I have strong interest in the communication of statistics and like to collaborate in interdisciplinary projects on this topic.
Research interests
- Optimal scaling regression, specifically in GLMs and survival analysis
- Statistics Communication and (in)numeracy
Selection of current activities
- Research project: Optimal Scaling in GLMs, including the development of an R-package
- Research project: Using factchecks to combat misleading graphs, collaboration with Winnifred Wijnker, Ionica Smeets and Peter Burger. Funded by LUF Lustrum Subsidy.
- Education project: Implementation of lesson plan to improve critical thinking regarding statistics in secondary school students – lesson plan developed by students from the Science Communication & Society master specialisation (Annelies Smit, Jesse van Welzenes, Manon Boot, Neele Dijkstra and Soraya Schachtschabel)
- Reading group: “Statistics Communication and (in)numeracy“
- Activities for the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research (VVSOR):
- Founding chair of the Statistics Communication Section
- Co-coordinator and author for the blog (started at end of April, 2021)
- Editor of STAtOR magazine

Contact
E-mail: s.j.w.willems “at” fsw.leidenuniv.nl