Philip B. Stark

Research Expertise and Interest

elections, astrophysics, law, statistics, litigation, causal inference, inverse problems, geophysics, uncertainty quantification, educational technology, soil science, race and gender bias and discrimination, nonparametrics, climate, natural disasters, sustainable food systems, seismology earthquakes earthquake hazard mitigation earth structure tomography natural hazards, public impact research/scholarship, community-engaged research/scholarship, community-based research partnerships, social justice research, research in the public interest

Research Description

Philip Stark studies inference problems and uncertainty quantification with applications in physical, biological, and social sciences. He focuses on nonparametric and exact inference tailored for specific scientific goals. He developed methods for auditing elections now in law in more than fifteen U.S. states. He developed or co-developed methods that are part of the data pipelines of the Øersted geomagnetic satellite and the Global Oscillations Network Group. He has consulted for major corporations and for the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the California Attorney General, the California Highway Patrol, the Illinois State Attorney, and the New Hampshire Secretary of State, the New Hampshire Attorney General. He has testified to the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on the Census; the State of California Senate Committee on Elections, Reapportionment and Constitutional Amendments; the State of California Assembly Committee on Elections and Redistricting; and the State of California Senate Committee on Natural Resources. He currently serves on the Board of Advisors of the US Election Assistance Commission. See www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/bio.pdf 

In the News

Is Trump right about Georgia vote?

As it has in many states, President Donald Trump’s campaign questioned the outcome of the election in Georgia, where Joe Biden has a lead of over 14,000 votes, too close for Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to call.

California Assembly committee endorses statistician's election auditing method

Since 1965, California counties have been required to hand tally one percent of all ballots after an election to validate the machine count, despite the fact that available auditing techniques lack any statistical basis. UC Berkeley's Philip Stark has now provided statistically sound methods for conducting these audits, and a proposed bill, AB 20203, will establish a statewide pilot program to test these methods.

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