Dear {Contact_First_Name},
Greetings from Oberstdorf, Germany. This newsletter comes to you from sunny Bavaria, where I am holidaying at the moment. It's a somewhat toned-down version of the regular newsletter. Since I compiled it before my departure last Friday, it may be missing some recently announced branch events. To make sure you don't miss out on anything, please check out the events area on SSA's website to see what may be happening in your state and around the country. Until next week,
Marie-Louise Rankin
Executive Officer
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Please note
that the SSA office will be closed from 19 May until 6 June 2022 while I am on
recreational leave. For any event-related matters please contact SSA’s Event
Coordinator, Jodi Phillips. For any newsletter items for the 2 June 2022 issue, please email them to my usual email address with the words “Newsletter item” in the subject line before 9 am AEST on Thursday, 2 June 2022. Thank you! Marie-Louise Rankin |
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Reflections
by our Pitman Medallists |
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The Statistical Society of Australia (SSA) offers several awards, honouring members' contributions to the statistical community. The most prestigious of the awards is the Pitman Medal, named after Edwin James George Pitman (1897-1993). The Pitman Medal is awarded in recognition of outstanding achievements in, and contribution to, the discipline of Statistics. |
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In this series, we feature past recipients of the Pitman Medal:
Matt Wand, Pitman Medalist 2014 |
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A Pitman Medal was presented to me at the Australian Statistical Conference in July 2014. I was the recipient for the 2013 calendar year. As described in the medal's documentation, this award from the Statistical Society of Australia is in recognition of outstanding achievement in, and contribution to, the discipline of Statistics. I have been a member of the Statistical Society of Australia since joining it as an undergraduate student in 1985, so I was pleased to receive this honour.
Unlike other some other awards and fellowships that I have been fortunate to receive, I never saw any of the paperwork for this nomination and, to this day, I don't know who it was that nominated me. Whoever you are: I'm very grateful and still owe you a beer. It seems that I received it due to my research over, at the time of the award, close to three decades involving Statistics methodology, theory and computing. Since my doctoral thesis from the late 1980s, I have always found the problem of flexible regression a rich area for research. Some of the technical phrases connected to this area are: nonparametric regression, generalized additive models, penalized splines and wavelets, linear mixed models. In the 1980s computing was much more rudimentary and more research than not was concerned with theoretical aspects. A pivotal event for me was being hired by Harvard University in 1997 to mould my flexible regression skills towards applications in public health such as air pollution epidemiology. Around that time, the R language emerged and before long I wasn't just publishing statistical methodology in journals but also putting R packages on the R Internet repository. In 2003 and 2018 I co-published the books "Semiparametric Regression" and "Semiparametric Regression with R".
A particularly enjoyable part of being a researcher in these areas is passing on the skills to the next generation. I have been the primary supervisor for 16 doctoral students: 8 men and 8 women and have also supervised several post-doctoral research fellows. It was fortunate that the 2014 Australian Statistical Conference took place in my home state of New South Wales, which only happens every 10-15 years. This meant that my wife, children and parents were able to attend the ceremony - as well as some of my academic "children" from that time.
A Pitman Medal was presented to me at the Australian Statistical Conference in July 2014. I was the recipient for the 2013 calendar year. As described in the medal's documentation, this award from the Statistical Society of Australia is in recognition of outstanding achievement in, and contribution to, the discipline of Statistics. I have been a member of the Statistical Society of Australia since joining it as an undergraduate student in 1985, so I was pleased to receive this honour.
Unlike other some other awards and fellowships that I have been fortunate to receive, I never saw any of the paperwork for this nomination and, to this day, I don't know who it was that nominated me. Whoever you are: I'm very grateful and still owe you a beer. It seems that I received it due to my research over, at the time of the award, close to three decades involving Statistics methodology, theory and computing. Since my doctoral thesis from the late 1980s, I have always found the problem of flexible regression a rich area for research. Some of the technical phrases connected to this area are: nonparametric regression, generalized additive models, penalized splines and wavelets, linear mixed models. In the 1980s computing was much more rudimentary and more research than not was concerned with theoretical aspects. A pivotal event for me was being hired by Harvard University in 1997 to mould my flexible regression skills towards applications in public health such as air pollution epidemiology. Around that time, the R language emerged and before long I wasn't just publishing statistical methodology in journals but also putting R packages on the R Internet repository. In 2003 and 2018 I co-published the books "Semiparametric Regression" and "Semiparametric Regression with R".
A particularly enjoyable part of being a researcher in these areas is passing on the skills to the next generation. I have been the primary supervisor for 16 doctoral students: 8 men and 8 women and have also supervised several post-doctoral research fellows. It was fortunate that the 2014 Australian Statistical Conference took place in my home state of New South Wales, which only happens every 10-15 years. This meant that my wife, children and parents were able to attend the ceremony - as well as some of my academic "children" from that time. |
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Matt Wand receives the 2013 Pitman Medal at the 2014 Australian
Statistical Conference in Sydney. Pictured with Matt are his mother, Christine,
wife, Handan and father, Paul.
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STATS + STORIES Podcasts: The Age of the Supercentenarian
When American comedian and actor Betty White died, fans lamented the fact that she had just missed making it to her 100th birthday. They felt she’d been robbed of achieving a significant life moment. Some researchers think that this century could see more people making it to that moment and beyond. That’s the focus of this episode of Stats and Stories with guest Michael Pearce.
Michael Pearce is a PhD candidate in Statistics at the University of Washington, working under the supervision of Elena A. Erosheva. His primary research interests include preference learning and developing Bayesian statistical models for social science problems. |
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WHO launches new Mortality Database visualization portal
A new World Health Organization (WHO) Mortality Database visualization portal has been released, reflecting key updates to modernize the user interface that give unparalleled insight, accessibility and relevance to seven decades of mortality data for policymakers and the public. |
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CAUSE Statistical Caption Contest The Consortium for the Advancement of Undergraduate Statistics Education (CAUSE) holds a monthly competition that could be of interest to statistical educators and anyone who uses or enjoys statistics. |
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Write a statistical caption for this cartoon along with a relevant statistical learning objective you would use it to teach!
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Last month's winning entry: |
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"Data is right up a statistician's alley!", written by Larry Lesser from the University of Texas at El Paso. Larry’s caption provides a reminder of the ubiquitous importance of data in Statistics & Data Science
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Last Chance: Nominations open for Australian Academy of Science Awards
The Australian Academy of Science (AAS) is committed to celebrating and supporting diversity. The Academy is seeking nominations of outstanding scientists from all career stages, backgrounds and genders, and strongly encourages more nominations of women and other under-represented groups for all awards, in particular the career and mid-career honorific awards.
Honorific award nominations close on 30 May 2022. Research conference, research award and travelling fellowship applications close on 1 June 2022.
Awards include the prestigious Hannon Medal, which is given every 2 years, alternating between applied or computational mathematics and statistics.
The following two awards might be suitable for people more in the genomics area:
- The Suzanne Cory Medal (career award, 2023 non-biomedical biologicals sciences
- Ruth Stephens Gani Medal (human genetics, including clinical, molecular, population and epidemiological genetics and cytogenetics; ECR up to 10 years post PhD).
For further information on the 2023 award round, including how to nominate and apply, visit the Academy’s award page.
If you have any questions about the award nomination process, please contact the Academy’s awards team at awards@science.org.au. |
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Last Chance: Significance 2022 Early-Career Writing Competition
Are you an early-career statistician with a compelling data story to tell? It sounds like the Significance 2022 writing competition is for you! The Significance magazine, a partnership between the Royal Statistical Society, American Statistical Association and the Statistical Society of Australia, is seeking applications for the ‘Statistical Excellence Award for Early-Career Writing’.
The closing date is 31st May 2022; further details can be found here. |
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Sampling Course -12 October – 7 December 2022, 11:00 AM (AEDT), held online
The Social Research Centre (SRC) and the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA) are very proud to offer statistical training from the International Program in Survey and Data Science (IPSDS).
The 8-week online sampling course is aimed at working professionals who are interested in expanding their data collection skills. The course will be available fully online with pre-recorded videos that students are expected to watch on their own time plus weekly 1-hour live interactive sessions with the instructor, Raphael Nishimura, Director of Sampling Operations at the University of Michigan. |
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Early Career Bayes Seminar for 2022- 26 May 2022, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM, QUT Gardens Point and online
The QLD Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA) and Centre for Data Science, Queensland University of Technology are delighted to present our second Early Career Bayes Seminar for 2022 with Mary Llewellyn, School of Mathematics at the University of Edinburgh.
Mary will be presenting “Discretising a Continuous World: Accelerated Inference for State-Space Models via Hidden Markov Models”. |
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Statistical Consulting Network May Meet-Up- 27 May 2022, 12:30 PM – 1:30 PM (AEST), held online
Come along with your thinking cap, maybe a problem, and some lunch!
The Statistical Consulting Network invites you to their monthly meet-up, a virtual lunchtime meeting where statisticians help each other out with problems that they aren’t sure how to deal with. |
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Perth Biostatistics/Bioinformatics Meetup
This is a joint event supported by the WA Branch of the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA), the SSA Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Section, Clinical Trials Enablement Platform WA (CTEP-WA).
Tuesday, 14 June 2022, from 5:30pm AWST
McCusker Auditorium, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research (North), ), QEII Medical Centre, 6 Verdun Street, Nedlands
The purpose of this event is to bring together those with expertise and/or interest in medical and healthcare statistics in Perth. It is an opportunity to socialise and network, and encourage upcoming professionals to pursue a career in this worthwhile field.
We have invited two speakers to give brief addresses this evening:
- Dr Julie Marsh (Telethon Kids Institute) who will speak on "Bayesian Approaches to Platform Trials", and
- Dr Alyce Russell (University of Sydney) who will speak on her recent work.
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IAOS-ISI 2023 Zambia Conference: Save the date - 4-6 April 2023
The International Association for Official Statistics (IAOS), the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and the Zambia Statistics Agency are pleased to announce that the 17th IAOS Conference will be held in Zambia on 4-6 April 2023. This replaces the IAOS-ISI 2020 conference which had to be postponed due to the pandemic. |
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34th Annual Conference of the International Society for Environmental Epidemiology (ISEE) 18-21 September 2022, Athens (in person and online)
The main theme of the 2022 conference, “Strengthening the global role of environmental epidemiology”, is highlighting the need to study and understand local conditions in order to synthesize the knowledge and make a difference for our Planet. |
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Would you like to see your job advertised here? Our newsletter has an opening rate of 60%, which means that over 500 statisticians or student statisticians will see your ad. Place an ad in SSA's Career Centre, and it will be automatically listed in this newsletter. |
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If you have news from the Australian statistical community to share in Stats Matters and Events, please get in touch with us! We love getting feedback too. |
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