The Department of Statistics at North Carolina State University (NCSU) is hosting the "2011 International Conference on Probability, Statistics and Data Analysis" in the NCSU campus in Raleigh, North Carolina, from April 21-24, 2011. All presentations will take place in the newly built state-of-the-art building named "SAS Hall." The conference serves as the official meeting of the International Indian Statistical Association (IISA), and provides its members a unique opportunity to meet fellow statisticians and exchange ideas. The conference is co-sponsored by the American Statistical Association (ASA), NC Chapter of ASA, National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS), SAS Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), The College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (PAMS) and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) of NCSU. The Department of Statistics at NCSU is providing equipment, staff and logistic support. The conference includes 4 plenary talks given by Prof. S. R. S. Varadhan, Prof. Peter Hall, Prof. Michael Jordan and Prof. Sally Morton. The conference also features 6 special invited talks, over 150 invited talks, a poster session and panel discussions on funding opportunities and statistical education. Eminent speakers, women, minorities, under-represented groups, graduate students and young professionals will be supported by the funding received from federal granting agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF).
The main objective of the conference is to bring together both well established and emerging young researchers from around the world who are actively pursuing theoretical and methodological research in statistics and their applications in various allied fields. The conference aims to provide a forum for leading experts and young researchers to discuss recent progress in statistical theory and applications, thereby provide new directions for statistical inference in various fields. The conference thus provides tremendous opportunities and benefits to graduate students, young researchers and professionals from industry and government agencies by giving them an exposure to the cutting edge statistical methods and their applications and providing them a platform to showcase their own work to experts on the field through poster and oral presentations. Moreover, interactive panel discussions on funding opportunities and statistical education will help them better prepare for their career ahead. Women, minorities and under-represented groups have been encouraged to participate in the conference by proving them partial funding support, thus promoting diversity in our profession. The conference website www.iisaconference.info will disseminate conference products by providing links to all conference related material including abstracts and slides of the talks and hence this website will serve as a great resource for not only the conference participants but also to any professionals interested in statistical theory and applications.
This was a highly successful conference. Nearly 300 participants attended the conference, 178 speakers gave talks on their research, and 14 students presented posters. In addition there were two panel discussion sessions, one on funding given by officials from NSF, NIH and census bureau, and the other on statistics education and testing. These programs were highly beneficial especially for students and young researchers. With the help of NSF funding, it was possible to support more than 65 people including 28 students, 17 women, 3 from minority and underrepresented groups and 13 young researchers early in their careers. Researchers got an excellent stage for presenting their work before experts and other researchers. For many students and young researchers, this was one of the best opportunities in their career. Many women and people from minority groups participated in the meeting. Participation from students was overwhelming --- 42 students attended the conference, and many presented posters or talks. Two students were also awarded for best posters, and two young researchers got awards for their research contributions. Students of NC State Department of Statistics volunteered in the conference, thus getting a valuable experience in organizing conferences. Research talks helped participants exchange ideas. For students and young participants, who are the major beneficiaries of the funding, this was an extremely valuable experience. Panel discussion sessions on funding and statistics education helped training outstanding researchers and teachers of the future. A significant number of talks were on the interface like bioinformatics, image processing and industrial statistics, thus promoting interactions with other fields. There were unanimous praise about the conference by the attendees such as 'This was an exceptionally well organized conference, and the sessions were also informative and thought provoking' In summary, the conference was hugely successful in bringing young and experienced researchers together and provided an ideal platform for exchanging ideas on cutting-edge research on a variety of topics.
