SSA Vic was delighted to support six PhD students to attend the recent Young Statisticians Conference in Canberra. 

Three of them share their experiences with us:

Ruoxu Tan (University of Melbourne):

It was a great experience at YSC2019 last week. I was delighted and excited to communicate with so many young statisticians and experienced professors. By listening to the presentations, I found that statistics is really an interdisciplinary subject: not only is it based on profound mathematics, but it also combines with computer science, bioinformatics, etc. to be so powerful to really make a difference in our lives. A particular example that interested me was data visualisation by a few presenters. That was beautiful and impressive through the natural way, vision. Besides, it was the first time I gave a formal talk at a conference. I was quite nervous at the beginning, but I believe it went well overall. By the way, the refreshments during the breaks were quite yummy. I appreciate that I've been to YSC2019.

Quoc Duyet Tran (RMIT):

This is the first time I joined Young Statistician Conference in Australia. I spent 4 days to attending YSC2019 in Canberra and I can’t forget this exciting time in my life. In the first day, I learned from the training workshop to learn how to access and build up the data from ABS for contributing in the future research. Then, in the late afternoon, how beautiful and fantastic Floriade festival in Canberra to enjoy and explore with various kinds of tulip flowers. The next two days, I and other delegates presented our topics and learned from each other. I found that lots of topics are very potential keys to figure out and research if we can collaborate with others. I expect to get more feedback and questions from other participants, but my talk duration is only 5 minutes before lunch. So, people don’t have time to ask me and I also don’t have time to explain more on my topic. However, I had share my topic through the break time and discuss with some new friends. The most valuable for me to gain from this conference is that I met some new talented friends and extended my network. Thanks to my supervisors, RMIT and SSA Vic for supporting me to attend the YSC2019. Hopefully, I will go to YSC2021!

Udani Wijewardhana (Swinburne University):

As a postgraduate student reading for a PhD, I was much privileged for the opportunity to participate at the recently concluded Young Statistician Conference 2019. Presenting my research to an academic audience and exchanging and learning new concepts and ideas was a memorable and priceless experience. The R Markdown workshop was extremely useful to me in learning the essential skills of drafting research papers and statistical websites in a more effective and attractive manner. The trivia night and conference dinner were awesome for networking with counterparts with similar interests. The program was well organised, and the committee very friendly and supportive. I definitely hope to attend next year's conference too and would like to sincerely thank SSA Vic for their supporting grant to make the YSC conference a possibility.

YSC2019 was sponsored by