Edward Wegman is an American statistician and was a professor of statistics at George Mason University (GMU) until his retirement in 2018.
In addition to his work in the field of statistical computing, Wegman contributed a report to a Congressional hearing on climate change at the request of Republican Rep. Joe Barton.
Wegman's report supported criticisms of the methodology of two specific paleoclimate studies into the temperature record of the past 1000 years, and argued that climate scientists were excessively isolated from the statistical mainstream.
"[2][5] In 2006, Republican Congressman Joe Barton chose Wegman to assist the House Energy and Commerce Committee in its inquiry criticizing the multi-proxy paleoclimate reconstructions which had been dubbed the "hockey stick graph".
Wegman produced a report and offered testimony supporting published papers disputing the methodology and data used by the climate scientists.
[7] In October 2010, George Mason University announced they were conducting a formal investigation into charges of plagiarism and misconduct related to the Wegman Report.
[12] Subsequently, USA Today reported additional concerns about separate 2009 review article authored by Wegman and Said which contained material copied without attribution from Wikipedia.