Welcome to the August edition of the SSA newsletter

The job of an Association Executive Officer is not without its perks. As we are all counting down the last days of winter, I was lucky enough to escape the chilly temperatures last week, having been invited to “Meet Darwin”, a familiarisation tour of Darwin and surrounds, compliments of the Northern Territory Business Bureau and Darwin Convention Centre.  Over four fabulous days I experienced the superb hospitality of the Northern Territory. It didn’t take me long to decide: Darwin would make a fantastic conference destination. Want to know why? Click here.

Marie-Louise Rankin, 
Executive Officer, SSA

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News from the Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Section

The SSA Biostatistics & Bioinformatics Section co-hosted a ‘Getting started in biostatistical consultancy’ workshop with the Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics Unit at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne on Thursday 4^th July. This long-awaited event attracted a great amount of interest, reaching capacity shortly after the early-bird registration date; perhaps not surprising given the fantastic speakers the organisers managed to attract to this workshop. Read all about this event here.

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Vic Branch July meeting:

Anthony Lee and Sequential Monte Carlo

On the evening of 18 July, 50 eager statisticians gathered at Monash University to hear Dr Anthony Lee from the University of Bristol talk about sequential Monte Carlo methodology.  

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SA Branch July 2019 monthly meeting:

Quantitative Bias Analysis

On 24^th July 2019 Dr Murthy Mittinty presented a talk on Quantitative Bias Analysis to the South Australian branch. Dr Mittinty is a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at The University of Adelaide and interested in both methodological development and applications of statistical methods. The talk discussed systematic and random errors in both observational or experimental data and how to handle them in observational studies. Dr Mittinty talked about how to select a method to model biases and software that can be used for conducting quantitative bias analysis with examples. Read more here.

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Canberra Branch

Statistics in the Capital...Round 1: Data Confidentiality versus Utility...Fight!

SSA Canberra is delighted to have Dr Daniel Elazar speak at the August Foreman lecture branch meeting. Daniel Elazar is currently the Director of the Data Integration, Access and Confidentiality Methodology Unit which develops and applies statistical methodologies in record linkage and confidentiality. He will be speaking about the methodological challenges in balancing data Confidentiality and utility in an increasingly contested data environment.

The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday 27 August. Details are available on the Canberra branch meeting website. 

Francis Hui, Warren Muller, Daniel Fearnley, Phil Tennant
On behalf of SSA Canberra

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News from the Bayes Section

Congratulations to Murray Aitkin for his recent award of an honorary fellowship from the Statistical Modelling Society. A report on Anthony Lee’s visit to the University of New South Wales. Reminders of deadlines for Bayes on the Beach 2019, BayesComp and ISBA 2020. Read more here.

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News from the Statistical Education Section

What: PhD (Statistics) Scholarship

Where: Faculty of Science, The University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

When: Submissions due 12 Sept, 2019 (for commencement by Jan 2020)

Who: Domestic or International applicant

Applications: to Peter.Howley@newcastle.edu.au
Please include your CV, an overview of how you address the criteria, a completed EOI form and a sample of recent academic writing.

Principal Supervisor: A/Prof Peter Howley (Section Chair: Statistical Education)

Details of this opportunity available online

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The National Schools Poster Competition is on in 2019.

i.       Engaging over 1000 students annually, the project-based learning activity involves teams of 2 to 5 school students creating an informative e-poster communicating an investigation on any topic from any field as determined by the students, utilising the collection, presentation and interpretation of data. There are 5 divisions, Stages 2-6.

ii.     Please promote to schools, teachers, school-aged students, friends, family with school-aged students, etc) using the 1-min overview video and NSPC website.

iii.    Submissions are due online by 10 November annually

iv.    The 2018 Year 10 and Year 12 winners have been submitted to the International Statistical Literacy Project 2018-19 competition. Winners of this international competition expected to be known mid-year.

v.     Liaising with Petra Kuhnert (CSIRO), the Australasian Biometrics Society is sponsoring a special feature Year 9/10 Division of the NSPC for entries with a Biometrics theme(Prizes of $300, $200 and $100 for 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd)  to align with the 2019 International Biometric Society (Australasian Region) Conference in Adelaide.

Peter Howley, Statistical Education Section – Chair

Question of the month:

Would you recommend joining SSA to others? Why? Have your say here.

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Places filling up fast for the Young Statisticians Conference 2019

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UniBank is a proud sponsor of YSC2019

At UniBank, we believe in the contribution that universities make to our community and to the world.

We believe in the power that higher learning has to change minds, to change how things are done. Because knowledge, discovery and new ways of thinking are important to us too.

That’s why we’re focused on supporting university communities across Australia through collaboration and partnership with key stakeholders within the sector. And why we’re determined to deliver exceptional lifetime banking experiences for staff, students and graduates of
Australian universities and their families.

To know more visit unibank.com.au

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Compete for an Invited Session at JSM

The program chair for the 2020 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Philadelphia, PA—to be held August 1-6, 2020— recently contacted the SSA with an invitation to participate in a competition for an invited session for these meetings. JSM encourages proposals for invited sessions on topics of your choice to be submitted. These submissions will compete for a maximum of nine invited sessions for organisations other than the JSM sponsors.

The theme for JSM 2020 is “Everyone Counts: Data for the Public Good,” but not all sessions have to adhere to this theme. Formats vary for invited sessions; however, all are 110 minutes in length and have a session chair. The sessions typically include 2–6 participants, including the chair, with two of the most popular and successful formats being 2–3 speakers with a discussant or a panel discussion of 3–5 panelists. Please reference the call for invited sessions published in Amstat News: https://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2019/07/01/jsm2020/.

The submission deadline is 5 September 2019. For more information please click here.

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News from the Official Statistics Section

John Pullinger, incoming president of IAOS

At the World Statistics Conference in Kuala Lumpur this month, John Pullinger - currently National Statistician in the UK -  will take over from Mario Palmo as president of the International Association of Official Statistics. 

His background in official statistics, and as a former president of the Royal Statistical Society is canvassed in an interview with Katherine Condon for the Statistical Journal of the IAOS. See the interview here.  

Of note are his remarks on his various roles in the RSS and within the UN system, his championing of statistical literacy in government and in the UK Parliament, and on his long term interest in public policy. He joined as Director of Public Policy when Bill McLennan was brought in to rebuild the UK Office of National Statistics in the late 1990s, eventually taking the top position in the newly centralised government statistical service.  

Stephen Horn
Chair, Official Statistics Section

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Have you seen our videos?

Missed a branch meeting? Not to worry! Many of our events are recorded and you can “attend” them in your own time, watch them on your PC or device, perhaps even with a cup of tea or something stronger!

Click here to see what is available and don’t forget to check back from time to time to find out what has been added. The latest videos available are Dr Susanna Cramb's presentation on "Cancer Maps" and a recording of "Time Series - A conference honouring Professor William Dunsmuir". A couple of videos from 2018 can be found here, but you need to be logged in to have access.

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AGM 2019 Notice

The 2019 Annual General Meetings of the Statistical Society of Australia, Inc and the Australian Statistical Publishing Association Inc will be held on Tuesday, 27 August 2019 from 5:00pm, preceded by light refreshments and followed by the Foreman lecture and dinner at a venue in Canberra to be confirmed.

The constitution of the SSA requires that the AGMs take place within five months of the close of the financial year of the society and usually the AGMs are scheduled to coincide with the society’s conference. For 2019 this timing was inappropriate.

The meeting agendas and other documents relevant to the AGMs will be published here as they become available. If you wish to read these in hard-copy, would you please print them yourself, since only limited copies will be available at the meeting.

A quorum of 20 members is required to legitimise any decisions made at the AGMs.

It would be wonderful to see you there.

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Do you post to the ANZSTAT discussion forum?

Could I please encourage those of you who intend to post on SSA's new ANZSTAT list to change your privacy settings in your membership profile to “public” if you have not yet done so? Otherwise your comments will be displayed as having been made by “Anonymous”. 
To change the profile settings, please log into your membership account. Click on “Privacy” and “Edit profile”. Then tick the box next to “Show profile to others”.
Below the option to show your profile to others you’ll see a long list of items. You can select here which pieces of information you’d like “anybody” or just “other “members”to see. Ideally it should only be your name. I recommend that you do not make other details available to the public.
Marie-Louise Rankin, Executive Officer, SSA
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Ken Russell Obituary

We are sad to advise that A/Professor Ken Russell passed away in Wollongong on 16 July after a battle with cancer. Ken was an adjunct Professor of Mathematical Science in the School of Computing and Mathematics at Charles Sturt University. He joined CSU in 2011 after many years at the University of Wollongong, where he was Director of the Statistical Consulting Service for most of the time. He taught many mainstream and service Statistics subjects in that time, and held several teaching awards, including an ALTC Citation for outstanding contributions to student learning. His research specialty was Experimental Design.Ken was one of our longest serving members, having joined the SSA in 1974. He was a member of the Accreditation Committee from 2010 until 2015, and he chaired this committee from May 2014 until the end of 2015. He took over as Technical Editor of the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Statistics during the 2004-5 year and served for 6 years until 2010-11.