This proposal describes plans for the 16th IMS New Researchers Conference, a conference series sponsored by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, to be organized by and held for junior researchers. The primary objective is to provide a much needed platform for interaction among new researchers. The proposed conference will take place over three days, July 31-August 2, 2013, at the Department of Statistics at Harvard University. The conference will be held immediately preceding the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), which will take place at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center from August 2 - 7, 2014 in Boston, MA. Participants will be statisticians and probabilists who have received their Ph.D. within the past five years or are expecting to receive their degree within the same year. The conference strongly encourages participation from under-represented groups and has historically attracted a very high proportion of women (more than 50% of the participants were women last year). Each participant will present a short spotlight talk and a more detailed poster. Topics will cover a variety of areas in statistics and probability, from theory and methods to applications. In particular, statistical methodology relevant to the health and environmental sciences are covered, such as biomedical statistics, medical imaging, neuroscience, cancer data analysis, environmental statistics, epidemiology, computational statistics, bioinformatics, etc. Senior speakers will give plenary talks for inspiration and overview of various disciplines, and other senior researchers will take part in four discussion panels (data science, leadership, publishing, and funding) covering topics of importance for young people embarking on an academic/research career. This conference series is explicitly aimed at training the future leaders and workers of our profession. The participants will be able to learn what other people at similar stages of their career are researching, which is useful in broadening their views on the current trends in statistics and probability. In helping to create networks of new researchers, it lays the groundwork for future collaboration and the informal exchange of ideas and knowledge. The conference has the specialty of being organized by junior researchers for junior researchers, so as to better address their own needs. As a byproduct, this gives the members of the organizing committee experience in the many aspects of hosting a conference.
The proposed IMS New Researchers Conference is explicitly aimed at training the future leaders and workers in statistics and probability including methodology relevant to the health and environmental sciences, such as biomedical statistics, medical imaging, bioinformatics, neuroscience, cancer research, environmental statistics, epidemiology, computational statistics, etc. The conference also includes a panel on grant writing and we will invite a representative from NIH to present an overview of the statistical research currently of interest to NIH.
