American Statistical Association (ASA) Section on Statistics and the Environment (ENVR) Last Modified: 2002-Jan-27 Send comments, corrections, additions to: ENVR Web Editor or ENVR Webmaster

This year offers plenty of activities to professionals of all typeswithin environmental statistics. I am looking forward to meeting oldfriends and making new acquaintances at a number of truly excitingconferences and workshops upcoming.

Expect a good set of sessions at the ENAR meeting in Arlington, VA(March 17-20) [see Dale Zimmerman's report later in this column] and theWNAR meeting in Los Angeles (June 23-26). At the same time as the WNARmeetings is the Association's conference on radiation and health. Theconference, which will focus on low dose radiation effects, is now inits 15th year. For more details, visit http://www.amstat.org/meetings. Consider also the meeting of TheInternational Environmetrics Society, which will take place in Genoa,Italy this year (June 18-22). Don Stevens is heading up the ENVR effortfor this meeting and is organizing a session around the theme of designand model-based sampling. For further details see the web page athttp://www2.stat.unibo.it/ties2002.

If sunny California or coastal Italy don't tempt you, what about aconference in NEW YORK?! The Joint Statistical Meetings are August11-15. Ron McRoberts is in charge of organizing sessions for themeeting. It looks like there will be a number of outstanding sessions;Ron will report on the details of the sessions in upcoming issues ofthis newsletter. Also, look for a number of interesting lunchroundtables that Ron has organized.

Those of you interested in statistics related to Geographic InformationSystems will want to know more about an upcoming workshop in Seattle. Acouple of years ago the section sponsored a wonderful workshop onhierarchical models that Noel Cressie organized. What is special aboutthis type of meeting is that it starts with a short course followed byinformation topic sessions. Be sure to mark October 17-19, 2002 on yourcalendars. The workshop will be held on the campus of the University ofWashington, Seattle. Contact Linda Young for more details(LJYoung@unl.edu).

Students - be sure to look into the student paper award (moreinformation given below). We require that you send in an abstract toJSM (Feb. 1 deadline) and then send a paper to me (3 copies please) byJune 1, 2002. The top paper will receive $500 and we will present theaward at the section's annual business meeting.

The Section will be served by a great group this year. Members of thecommittee consist of the past chair, Linda Young, the treasurer isStephen Stehman and Marcia Gompertz who will handle the secretarialduties. John Bailer oversees Section publications. Jay ver Hoef is theprogram chair and Ron McRoberts is the program chair-elect for thenational meetings. Tony Olsen is the chair-elect. The publicationschair-elect and current web editor is Lance Waller. Dave Umbach is ourrepresentative to the Council on Sections.

Be aware that section officers are there to help out when we can.If you have suggestions for sessions at future JSMs; want moreinformation on conferences; or have other questions, feel free tocontact me at epsmith@vt.edu. Don't forget to look at the section webpage http://www.pnl.gov/statenvi for updates and news. I'm looking forward to a lively year in service to the Section.

Finally, heartfelt thanks to Linda Young and the past ENVR committee fortheir efforts last year. It was a great group to work with.

Student Paper Award: Sponsored by the Environmental Section of ASA (ENVR)

The Section on Statistics in the Environment of the ASA is sponsoring a studentpaper competition on the topic of Environmental Statistics. We encouragestudents to submit papers on their research in this area. The paper may consistof novel approaches to the analysis of environmental data, new methodologyapplicable in the area of environmental statistics or application of statisticsto environmental problems. The selected winner will present their paper in acontributed session at the 2002 Joint Statistical Meetings in New York

Who is eligible?: Anyone who is a student in the fall of 2001(undergraduate, Masters, and Ph.D.) is eligible to participate

Entry material:The applicant must submit an abstract by February 1 toASA and request a presentation in an ENVR (Section on Statistics in theEnvironment) session. The entry must be a paper in the form consistent with ASApublications. We recommend using ASA Proceedings guidelines however otherformats are acceptable. The applicant must be the first author of the paper. Inaddition, send a letter from a faculty member familiar with the student's workthat verifies the applicant's student status and, in the case of jointauthorship, should indicate what fraction of the contribution is attributableto the applicant. Three copies of all materials should be sent to the addressgiven below by June 1, 2002.

Electronic submission: You may submit material electronically. We preferthat electronic submissions of papers be in Postscript or PDF. All materialsmust be in English.

Deadline: All application materials MUST BE RECEIVED by 5:00 PM EST,June 1, 2002 at the address below.

Review: Papers will be reviewed by the Student Paper Competition Awardcommittee of the Section on Statistics in the Environment. Selection will bebased on a variety of criteria at the discretion of the selection committee,and will include innovation and significance of contribution, amongst others.Award(s) will be announced prior to the JSM meetings in August, 2002. Thedecision of the selection committee will be final.

Inquiries and application materials should be emailed or mailed to:

ENAR 2002 Scientific Program
Dale Zimmerman (ASA/ENVR Program Representative on the ENAR program committee)

The ENAR 2002 Spring Meeting will be held March 17-20 in Arlington, VA.ENVR is sponsoring an invited session titled "Applications of SpectralMethods for Spatial Data." Organized by Oliver Schabenberger andfeaturing presentations by Montserrat Fuentes, Mark Handcock, SundardasDorai-Raj and Dale Zimmerman, this session aims to demonstrate theadvantages of spectral methods for spatial data analysis throughapplications. Additional invited sessions of particular interest to ENVRmembers include "Spatial Optimal Design with Application to Ecology,""Health Effects of Air Pollution: Statistical Methods and FutureDirections," and "Gene-Environment Interaction: Statistical Issues inthe Epidemiological Study of How Genetic Makeup and EnvironmentalExposures Jointly Influence Disease Risk."