This grant provides support for the Fourth International Joint Meeting of the IMS (Institute of Mathematical Statistics) and ISBA (the International Society for Bayesian Analysis), to be held on Wednesday, January 5 to Friday, January 7, 2011. A central theme of the conference will be Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and related methods and applications. The lion's share of the funding will be used to support the travel expenses of junior biostatistical investigators, i.e., persons pursuing a PhD or DrPH in statistics, biostatistics, or a closely related field, or who have received such a degree within the five years preceding the conference. Such investigators are often doing research that is among the most novel, interesting, and important for international dissemination, yet lack the travel funds necessary to attend such a conference, since they have not yet established a publication track record sufficient to attract external travel and other funding for their work. We have a commitment from ISBA to provide partial travel support for 10 young recent PhDs from economically disadvantaged countries, and are also seeking support from NSA for support for 10-15 additional young investigators. Specific goals and anticipated benefits of the conference include promoting the continued development of statistical theory and applications in finance, technology, environmental science, biomedicine and other areas, and a fuller exploration of the interplay of classical and Bayesian statistical methods in the context of specific areas of research.
Statisticians play an indispensable role in the analysis of biomedical, environmental and public health data, from the study design stage all the way through to final analysis and report-writing. Statisticians also serve on a myriad of scientific review and advisory panels, as well as provide statistical training and consulting to substantive area researchers. Finally, the development of new statistical methodology for interpretation of data from clinical, observational, and laboratory studies is a key area of statistical endeavor. As a result, scholarly conferences where new ideas can be exchanged are important for statistical science to move forward. The benefit of and need for attendance at such meetings by junior statistical researchers is particularly great, since they contribute mightily to their professional development and help "level the playing field" with more established senior investigators. This grant provides support for the Fourth International Joint Meeting of the IMS (Institute of Mathematical Statistics) and ISBA (the International Society for Bayesian Analysis), to be held Wednesday, January 5 to Friday, January 7, 2011. The lion's share of the support we seek is to support the travel expenses of junior investigators.
This was a travel grant, supporting the tr?avel expenses of ??junior investigators in statistics, biostatistics, or a related field to attend an international conference on Markov chain Monte Carlo methods. These are modern computational methods used in many modern statistical analyses, and which, if done efficiently, can greatly enhance the amount of information statisticians can extract from a complex data set. Benefits of the travel support included motivating young researchers to conduct research in the conference's focus areas, to encourage them to present their work, interact with senior colleagues, and make contact with their peers in a friendly, small meeting environment. We also sought to include a large portion of researchers and students from underrepresented minority groups, and provide for one-on-one discussions with colleagues from other institutions. Finally, the best scientific work from the meeting will ultimately appear in print in Bayesian Analysis, a freely available refereed journal hosted by the International Society for Bayesian Analysis, one of our conference co-sponsors.? Junior investigators were exposed to a variety of novel research in many disparate disciplines, including bioinformatics, environmental health science, genomics, DNA microarray analysis, software engineering, and other areas. As such, the grant played a major role in the development of the next generation of statistical and biostatistical researchers, as well as fostered their diversity with respect to race, gender, and national origin.
