The investigator and his colleagues will organize and conduct a Summer Research Conference (SRC) in statistics and biostatistics at Montgomery Bell State Park, Tennessee June 2-5, 2013. The SRC is an annual conference sponsored by the Southern Regional Council on Statistics (SRCOS). Its purpose is to encourage the interchange and mutual understanding of current research ideas in statistics and biostatistics, and to give motivation and direction to further research progress. The project will focus on young researchers, placing them in close proximity to leaders in the field for person-to-person interactions in a manner not possible at most other meetings. Speakers will present formal research talks with adequate time allowed for clarification, amplification, and further informal discussions in small groups. Under the travel support provided by this award students will attend and present their research in posters to be reviewed by more experienced researchers.
The Southern Regional Council on Statistics is a consortium of statistics and biostatistics programs in the South, stretching as far west as Texas and as far north as Maryland. It currently has member programs at 39 universities in 16 states in the region. This project will fund student participation in the 2013 Summer Research Conference (SRC) sponsored by SRCOS. The meeting is particularly valuable for students and faculty from smaller regional schools at drivable distances, affording them the opportunity to participate and interact closely with internationally-known leaders in the field without the cost of travel to distant national or international venues. It will strengthen the research of the statistics and biostatistics community as a whole, and particularly in the relatively underdeveloped southern region. For all details, go to the conference link at http://louisville.edu/sphis/bb/srcos-2013.
2013 SRCoS Summer Research Conference in Statistics and Biostatistics: a brief report A recognized activity of the International Year of Statistics (www.statistics2013.org/), the 49th Summer Research Conference (SRC) was held June 2-5 2013 at Montgomery Bell State Park near Nashville Tennessee. It was organized by the Southern Regional Council on Statistics (SRCoS) and hosted by the University of Louisville’s Department of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics. Ninety-five scholars participated. The website for the meeting is http://louisville.edu/sphis/bb/srcos-2013 and contains program details, manuscripts or pdfs of presentations, and photos of conference activities. The research program was anchored by two internationally-renowned plenary speakers from outside the region, Grace Wahba of Wisconsin and Brad Carlin of Minnesota, with discussants Yufeng Liu (UNC – Chapel Hill) and Frank Harrell (Vanderbilt) respectively. Six other invited oral presentation sessions featured senior faculty speakers and outstanding junior faculty invited speakers. Kathy Ensor (Rice University) gave a thought-provoking banquet speech. At the banquet, in addition to student poster awards, Paul Minton Awards for outstanding career service to the profession were given to D’Arcy Mays (VCU) and Dan Solomon (NC State). Forty-four students representing 22 graduate programs across the south received NSF funds to help support their travel to the meeting and participation in the NSF / RL Anderson student poster session. These awards enabled students, in many cases representing programs with limited travel budgets, to experience a significant scientific conference firsthand. They interacted closely with leading researchers in the field in a manner which would not be possible at larger national or international meetings (which would also be prohibitively expensive for many of these students to attend). The M. Clinton Miller award for best student poster went to Mohammed Chowdhury of George Washington University. RL Anderson runner-up student poster awards went to Joshua Patrick of Baylor and Sheng Wenhui of the University of Georgia. In addition to the annual student poster session, the 2013 SRC featured the inaugural ASA / Mike Kutner faculty poster session, with ten contributions. Funds from the American Statistical Association, SRCoS, and the National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) helped defray the cost of attendance for these faculty participants. NISS funds were also used by other participants from NISS member programs. The excellent program was sculpted by Jane Harvill (Baylor) and Ciprian Crainiceanu (Johns Hopkins). The student poster session was coordinated by Ed Boone with judging organized by D’Arcy Mays, both of VCU. The student-poster judging team was composed of faculty members John Grego (S. Carolina), KB Kulasakera (Louisville), Mike LeCocke (St. Mary’s) and Todd Ogden (Columbia). Kulasakera and John Wierman (Johns Hopkins) organized the ASA/Kutner poster session; Wierman was also the conference photographer. Local arrangements chairs were KB Kulasakera and Doug Lorenz of Louisville, with a spirited crew of student helpers.
