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STATS MATTERS & EVENTS

27 April 2023

Dear {Contact_First_Name},

By the time this edition of the weekly newsletter arrives in your inbox, I’ll be on a plane to Canada, for a month’s holiday and visiting family. Don’t worry though, I’m leaving you in the good hands of some wonderful people, who have agreed to keep things going at the office. First of all, there is Jodi Phillips, our capable Event Coordinator, who is facing the mammoth task of reading emails sent to eo@statsoc.org.au every day (in addition to working through her own emails of course). Jodi will attend to urgent enquiries or forward them to someone who will be able to help, but the key word here is urgent. Jodi will not take over my day-to-day tasks.

Then there is our Treasurer, Damjan Vukcevic, who will pay bills as required.

Finally, there is Elizabeth Russell, who kindly agreed to take over the management of the SSA weekly newsletter while I am away. I have to say, the newsletter was my biggest concern and finding Elizabeth was a stroke of luck! If you have any material for the newsletter, please email it to Elizabeth. Keep in mind that if you have any images (photos, graphs, logos) please send them as an attachment, with an indication where you would like them placed in the text.

My heartfelt thanks go out to this wonderful support team. My leave means extra work for them, and I really appreciate my colleagues taking this on.

If you are wondering why I’m making such a big deal over this – people go on leave all the time, right? – it is indeed a big deal for me. Other than a holiday over Christmas, when the office is very quiet anyway, in 2017, I have not taken four weeks of consecutive annual leave since 2011.

I’ll be back at the office on 30 May 2023 (29 May is a public holiday in some states and territories).

Talking about travelling - I won't be the only one. We just put out a call for applications for the Betty Allan Travel Award and we are giving a scholarship to one member to attend the ATSIMA conference this year. You’ll find more information below.

Marie-Louise Rankin
SSA Executive Officer                                      
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Notice
The SSA Office will be closed from 27 April until 30 May 2023
while the Executive Officer is on leave.

 

CSIRO/SSA Betty Allan Travel Award 

Frances Elizabeth (Betty) Allan (1905 to 1952) was CSIRO’s first statistician and provided statistical support across the organisation. She also lectured in mathematics and statistics at Canberra University College and Australian Forestry School. When she married in 1940 she was forced to retire, which was the law for female public servants.

This is national award honours Betty’s contribution to Australian statistics. The award is jointly funded by the Statistical Society and CSIRO’s Data61. The inaugural Betty Allan Award was awarded to two joint winners in 2019. Due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictions, further rounds of this award were put on hold until 2023. Going forward, one Betty Allan Award will be awarded per year.

Eligibility criteria for this award are as follows: the Betty Allan Award It is open to any early career woman or non-binary member of the Statistical Society of Australia and/or CSIRO staff member currently working or studying in the field of statistics in Australia. Early Career is here defined as someone who has been active in the field for ten years or less. For those with a PhD, this criterion will be interpreted as having graduated with their PhD within the past ten years. Extensions will be considered for valid career interruptions.

The application deadline is 26 May 2023. For details and to access the application form, please click here.

Calling for expressions of interest – ATSIMA Conference 2023

The ATSIMA (Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Mathematics Alliance) 2023 conference will be held from Monday 9th to Wednesday 11th October 2023. ATSIMA is an Indigenous led, non-profit organisation incorporated in 2015. The Statistical Society of Australia (SSA) has been a member of ATSIMA since 2021.

The 2023 event is the first mathematics education conference held in a Yolngu Community. It will provide delegates the opportunity to be immersed in a Yolngu Community, in Yolngu Language and Culture and explore the teaching and learning of mathematics that values Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.

ATSIMA conferences attract a wide range of people from all states and territories, leaders in education from the public and private sector and many other industries Australia wide, engaged in frontline education, in curriculum development, and from Government organisations and industry.

Interested? The Statistical Society of Australia (SSA) is sponsoring one member to attend the inaugural conference. The Society will cover your registration fee and your travel and accommodation expenses.  Please send your application to eo@statsoc.org.au by 5pm AEST on Thursday, 15 June 2023.  Members with an Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander background are especially encouraged to apply.

More information is available here. The application form is available on the SSA website.

C.R. Rao awarded International Prize in Statistics

A 102 years old man has won the prestigious International Prize in Statistics, which is considered the equivalent of the Nobel Prize in the field. C.R. Rao, originally from India, will be presented with the award and its accompanying $80,000 prize at the biennial International Statistical Institute World Statistics Congress in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada in July.

Rao's contributions to statistics research and education date back to the 1940s and include mentoring graduate students, publishing textbooks, and developing theories that continue to be relevant across various scientific fields. Rao's loved ones are thrilled that he is alive to receive this latest honor, which is one of many accolades he has earned throughout his career.

Find out more


The latest episode of The Random Sample podcast was just released!


In this episode, we explore the theory behind the discovery of gravitational waves with Science Academy Fellow & ANU Distinguished Professor Susan Scott.

100 years after Albert Einstein predicted their existence, scientists in 2015 detected gravitational waves for the first time ever. The historic discovery was the culmination of decades of research and hard work.

Distinguished Professor Susan Scott, from the Australian National University, was a senior member of the gravitational wave detection team and played a leading role in Australia’s participation in that discovery.

In this episode, Professor Scott explains what gravitational waves are and why it’s so important we study them. Plus, we explore the theoretical and technological efforts that allowed researchers to finally detect the waves.

Our host is Dr James Nichols, a mathematician and Lecturer at the Australian National University.

Search your #podcast app for The Random Sample!

Find out more

SSA Events

Statistical Consulting Network April Meet-Up

28 April 2023, 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. This virtual meeting is held on Zoom at lunchtime on the last Friday of each month, 12:30-1:30 PM (AEDT). We start each meet-up with announcements, or occasionally a special topic discussion, then discuss problems that attendees have brought along with them.

We also have a Slack workspace where members of the consulting network can communicate between meetings, or post problems or relevant materials they would like to discuss during a meeting.

Zoom link

Slack Workspace link


Getting to Know: The Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

4 May 2023, 2:00 PM (AEST), held Online

The SSA Early Career and Student Statistician Network and the New Zealand Statistical Association (NZSA) present: Getting to Know: The Australia Bureau of Statistics withClaire Clarke and Benjamin Long on 4 May 2023 at 2 pm AEST (4 pm NZST).

In this seminar Claire Clarke will give a brief overview of the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the work done by statisticians and data scientists there. She will outline the Data Graduate recruitment process and the ABS graduate development program, as well as other opportunities for careers at the ABS.

Benjamin Long will give some insights into his experiences as a graduate statistician at the ABS.

Click here to register.

Canberra Branch Meeting -- Machine Learning at the AIHW

2 May 2023, 5:45 PM – 7:00 PM (AEST), held online and in person

In this talk, Dr Sumon Shahriar will be presenting on how machine learning benefits and impacts two broad categories of applications at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW): streamlining data-centric processes and generating insights with pattern discovery in health and welfare domain datasets. 

To register click here. If you are interested in attending the dinner, please let us know by 6pm Monday 1 May by entering your details at SSA Canberra Branch dinner attendance sheet or contacting Warren Muller (warren.muller@csiro.au ; 0407 916 868).

Australian Statistical Conference (ASC) and Australian Conference on Teaching Statistics (OZCOTS) 2023

10–15 December 2023, Wollongong, NSW 

Hosted by the Statistical Society of Australia (SSA), this week-long conference covers both new developments and interesting applications of statistical methods. The theme for 2023 is ‘Statisticians in society’. The last two days overlap with OZCOTS, providing a great opportunity to dip into the teaching of statistics.

A diverse program includes speakers from academia, government and industry across a range of disciplines and career stages. The conference will be delivered in-person, with some hybrid sessions online. Highlights include: tips on statistical communication from Sir David Spiegelhalterwho holds a Cambridge Chair in Risk Communication, and a workshop on “Deep Statistics for More Rigorous and Efficient Data Science”, by Professor Xiao-Li Meng from Harvard. 

The extended abstract submission closes tomorrow, 28 April 2023.

Find out more

Early Career and Student Statisticians Network ASC Social

12 Dec 2023, 5:00 PM – 11:00 PM (AEDT), The Illawarra Brewery’s outdoor terrace at the WINN, Wollongong, NSW

The ECSSN is organising a social get-together during the ASC2023! We invite students, early career, and more senior statisticians to join us!  

 Enjoy a lovely beach view and network with like-minded people you might not see very often, plus have some fun, nibbles, and drinks!

To register just click here.

OZCOTS 2023 Social

14 Dec 2023, 7:00 PM – 11:00 PM (AEDT), Lucia's By the Sea, Wollongong, NSW

OZCOTS committee would love to invite you to come and join us for a lovely meal and catch up at a beautiful beach front venue.           

Click here to register


Other events:

Workshop on sequential Monte Carlo

SMC Down Under is a workshop on sequential Monte Carlo at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Brisbane, Australia from 10-13 July. The workshop will bring together the SMC community to discuss the theory and practice of sequential Monte Carlo. The workshop will consist of contributed talks, posters, and collaborative sessions to discuss current trends in SMC and its future directions.

We have a great line up of keynote speakers: Dr Francesca Crucinio, Professor Sumeetpal Singh, and Dr Saifuddin Syed.

Workshop registration and abstract submission are open. Please note that abstract submissions close 5 May 2023. The website \has all the details.

The workshop is sponsored by the Australian Mathematical Sciences Institute, Australian Mathematical Society and QUT Centre for Data Science.

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