The Australian Capital Territory (formerly Canberra) branch, founded in 1962, is one of six regional branches of the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA). It is an umbrella group for all statisticians, and those in who have an interest in statistics and related fields, who are based in the Australia Capital Territory (ACT) and regional NSW excluding the Sydney-Wollongong-Newcastle region.

SSA ACT provides a forum, support, and network for all statisticians in the ACT and regional NSW. This is achieved through a number of branch activities such as (but not limited to):

• Monthly branch meetings, running generally on the last Tuesday of each month from February to November;

• Workshops in statistics and related fields such as data science and machine learning;

• Student prizes and awards;

• Support for early career and student statisticians from the ACT branch e.g., grants to conference attendance. 

Branch Meetings

The ACT branch holds monthly meetings on topics of general statistical and data science interest. The meetings provide excellent opportunities to meet other statisticians and data scientists both socially and professionally, from all walks of statistical life who are based in the ACT/regional NSW and beyond.

Most branch meetings are held on the last Tuesday evening of each month, and are accompanied by a social dinner afterwards. Please see our Meeting website for details of the next/most recent event, and the SSA events calendar for a listing of all SSA events.

The branch has two named lectures each year:

• The Foreman lecture, in honour of Ken Foreman and his contributions to official statistics in Australia, is held typically held during the middle of the year, and alternates between a branch meeting joint with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and a lecture integrated into the Australian Statistical Conference.   
• The Knibbs and Wilson Lectures, in honour of Sir George Handley Knibbs and Professor Sue Wilson respectively, is held annually as the last meeting of the year (in alternating year cycles). Details about the lecture and a list of speakers throughout the years can be found here.

Workshops and Other Events

The branch holds typically runs annual workshops on topics of general interest to statisticians and data scientists in ACT/regional NSW. These have included workshops from eminent figures in statistics on experimental and statistical design, analysis of survey data, modern methods of model selection and dimension reduction, and Bayesian data analysis. Please see the SSA events listing for examples of upcoming workshops. 

Examples of previous workshops run by the ACT branch include:

• 2024 - An introduction to Bayesian Modelling using greta by Prof Nick Golding and Dr Nick Tierney; 
• 2022 - Time series and foreasting using R by Prof Rob Hyndman and A/Prof Bahman Rostami-Tabar;
• 2021 - Advanced data visualisation with R workshop by Dr Emi Tanaka and Prof Di Cook;
• 2021 - Data visualisation with R workshop by Dr Emi Tanaka and Prof Di Cook;
• 2019 - R skills workshop: R markdown and Building R packages by Dr Damjan Vukevic and Dr Nick Tierney;
• 2018 - Semiparametric regression with R by Prof Matt Wand;
• 2017 - Model selection with R by Prof Samuel Mueller and Dr Garth Tarr;

Student Prizes, Awards and Grants

The branch sponsors two prizes for students undertaking Bachelor and Masters of Statistics degrees at the Australia National University (ANU). Both prizes include a monetary component and plus one year’s student membership to the society.

The branch also runs the Dennis Trewin prize (named after the former Australian Statistician, Dennis Trewin AO) annually, where current and recent PhD and Masters students in statistics and related fields from ACT/regional NSW. You can find out more information about the Dennis Trewin prize including a list of past winners here.

In recent years, grant schemes have also been run, offering subsidies for various SSA workshops held both in and outside of the ACT branch, as well as other events such as the Australian Statistical Conference and Early Career and Student Statisticians Conference.

Branch Contacts and Documents

• A most recent copy of the SSA ACT branch rules can be found here
• For the most recent list of SSA ACT council members, and for more information regarding the roles and responsibilities of those on the SSA ACT council, please see here

We are always looking for people interested and passionate about giving back to the ACT and regional NSW statistical community! If you want to know more and/or want to get involved in any way, please contact us as ssacanberra 'at' gmail.com