The National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted a study in 2011 that showed patterns of racial bias in its awarding of funding. In response, it created a contest for suggestions about how to detect and combat the bias. The contest concluded recently, and first prize ($10,000) for “Most Creative Idea” for “New Methods to Detect Bias in Peer Review” went to a team comprised of Carole J. Lee, assistant professor of philosophy at University of Washington, and her colleague, associate professor of statistics Elena A. Erosheva. Their submission, “Identifying Commensuration Bias in Grant Review,” focused on the idea that “bias can creep in when evaluators combine several ratings in different categories to come up with an overall score.” For more details, see the article in UW Today.