The Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA Vic & Tas) is an umbrella group for all statisticians practising in Victoria and Tasmania, and for all non-statisticians with an interest in the field of statistics.

Major branch activities include:

• Monthly events
• Workshops
• Sponsorship of statistical events
• Support for Victorian and Tasmanian Early Career and Student Statisticians

Our monthly events are held from March to November each year, usually on the third Tuesday of the month. Typically we would invite a speaker to give a talk on a topic of general interest to statisticians.

Our Annual General Meeting is held in March.

Our premier event of the year is the Belz Lecture, held in October or November each year.

We announce our events on our Meetup group as well as on the society's Events calendar. We also run a Slack community, which is open to everyone, not just statisticians from Victoria and Tasmania.

Current SSA Vic & Tas Council

The current council comprises of

• Alun Pope (President)
• Elena Tartaglia (Vice President) 
• Rick Tankard (Treasurer)
• Anna Wilkinson (Deputy Treasurer) 
• Chris Selman (ECSS Representative) 
• Paul Burch (Tasmanian Representative) 
• Ninh Tran (Membership Officer) 
• Patrick Robotham (Industry Representative) 
• Dennis Leung (Deputy Membership Officer) 
• Shuwen Hu (Secretary) 
• Ryan Covey (Deputy Secretary) 
• Nick Tierney (Communications Officer) 
• Victorino Marquez Grajales (Deputy Communications Officer)

The list of past councilors can be found here.

Congratulations Dr Harcourt

We wish to congratulate Dr Alison Harcourt on being named Victoria’s 2019 Senior Australian of the Year and obtaining and honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Melbourne. Alison is one of our branch's longest serving members. Read more about her, and see her featured on the ABC 7.30 program, here.

SSA Vic & Tas Conference and Workshop Funding Scheme 2024

The Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA Vic & Tas) will again be offering financial support to our members for the attendance of statistical workshops, conferences, short courses or other events of a similar nature. Each member is eligible for $150 of funding to cover the registration and travel expenses associated with possibly multiple such events. We accept applications until Jan 31, 2025. For more details of our scheme, please visit our application form.

Sponsorship of Statistical Events and Support for Victorian Early Career and Student Statisticians

The Branch Council supports worthy statistical events, particularly those with high impact, and provides financial and professional support for the Victorian Early Career and Student Statisticians Group. In recent years the Branch Council has provided some financial assistance for:

• October 2019 — Supported the travel expenses of six student members attending the Young Statisticians Conference, Canberra.
• August 2018 — Joint International Society for Clinical Biostatistics and Australian Statistical Conference, Melbourne.
• August 2018 — Payment for refreshments at Early Career Event at Joint International Society for Clinical Biostatistics and Australian Statistical Conference, Melbourne.

Workshops

The Branch Council organises workshops on topics of interest to local statisticians. Details of current workshops can be found under Events.

Some of our recent workshops include:

• Feb 2023 - An introduction to SQL
• July 2022 - Machine learning with Python
• December 2021 - An introduction to SQL
• November 2021 - Machine learning with Python
• July 2021 - Introduction to Julia for Statistics and Data Science
• November 2020 - Data Visualisation with R
• July 2020 - Machine learning with Python
• July 2020 - Introduction to Julia for Statistics and Data Science
• July 2020 - Data Visualisation with R
• November 2019 — R Skills Workshops – R Markdown & Building R packages
• November 2019 — Machine Learning with Python
• November 2018 — R Skills Workshops – R Markdown & Building R packages
• July 2016 — Intermediate Bayesian Statistics
• March 2016 — Introduction to Bayesian Modelling and Analysis

The Belz Lecture

The Belz Lecture commenced in 1969 when Clem Pratt was the Victorian Branch President of the Statistical Society of Australia. It has become the premier event of the Victorian Branch calendar and is followed by the annual Belz Dinner. For more information and a list of previous Belz Lecturers, see the main Belz Lecture page.

Branch Documents

• Annual Reports: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019.
• The current Strategic Plan 2023-24 can be found here.
• Position description for SSA Vic Council can be found here.
• A copy of the Branch's Rules and Regulations can be found here.

Contact Details

To contact us, please email vic.branch@statsoc.org.au.