AmStat Section News, December 2004
Section on Statistics and the Environment (ENVR)
Lance A. Waller, ENVR Publications Officer
Conference Report: Computational Environmetrics
October 21-23, 2004, Chicago, Illinois
by Tony Olson
The Statistics and Environment Section of the American Statistical
Association (ASA) and the Center for Integrating the Statistical and the
Environmental Science (CISES) at the Department of Statistics,
University of Chicago, held a Computational Environmetrics conference on
October 21-23, 2004, in Chicago. Approximately, 90 environmental
statisticians attended the conference. The meeting began with
approximately 50 individuals taking one or two of three short courses
offered. Jeff Givens and Jennifer Hoeting (Colorado State U), presented
two courses: (1) Methods of integration for environmental problems in
statistics: quadrature, Monte Carlo integration and Markov chain Monte
Carlo methods, and (2) Optimization methods for environmental problems
in statistics: Numerical maximum likelihood, combinatorial optimization,
and the EM Algorithm. The courses were based on their forthcoming book
Statistical Computing (Wiley and Sons). Bryan Manly (Western Ecosystems
Technology, Inc) presented a course on ÒRandomization, Bootstrap and
Other Computer-Intensive Methods in Environmental Science.Ó This
half-day course covered topics in the book Randomization, Bootstrap and
Monte Carlo Methods in Biology by Bryan Manly.
Eighteen invited speakers presented papers that covered the application
areas ecology, air quality, water resources, environmental health
effects, climate and geosciences. Jim Clark (Duke University), Peter
Legendre (U of Montreal), Marc Coram (U of Chicago), and Devin Johnson
(U of Alaska Fairbanks) discussed ecological applications. Mark
Berliner (Ohio State U), Thomas Bengtsson (UC Berkeley), Doug Nychka
(National Center for Atmospheric Research) discussed geoscience and
climate applications. Robert Shumway (UC Davis), Jay Breidt (Colorado
State U), and Trend McDonald (WEST, Inc) discussed water resource
applications. Jim Zidek (U of British Columbia), Monserrat Fuentes
(North Carolina State U), and Catherine Calder (Ohio State U) discussed
air quality applications. Scott Zeger (Johns Hopkins U), Paul Rathouz
(U of Chicago), and Chris Paciorek (Harvard U) discussed environmental
health applications. Collectively, the papers illustrated the breadth
and depth of environmental research areas that require significant
computational methods to solve. It was noted by one speaker that
advances in computing technology have enabled environmental
statisticians to apply more realistic statistical models to pressing
environmental analyses.
On Friday evening, sixteen poster presentations were viewed as participants were served
hors dÕoeuvres. All enjoyed the opportunity to not only discuss the
posters but also to discuss papers presented earlier in the day. The
conference web site will have most of the presentations given at the
meeting available. The web address is
http://galton.uchicago.edu/~cises/events/envr/.
Special thanks goes out to members of the conference organizing
committee: David Higdon (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Jennifer
Hoeting (Colorado State U), Richard Levine (San Diego State U), Bryan
Manly (WEST, Inc), Sandra McBride (Duke U), Anthony Olsen (US EPA
Western Ecology Division), Robert Shumway (UC Davis), Michael Stein (U
Chicago, CISES), Chris Wikle (U of Missouri), and Linda Barrows (U
Chicago, CISES)
Thanks to Christopher for his impressive presentation, and to Eric Smith
and Wendy Meiring for an outstanding job working the sessions at JSM,
figuring out all the kinks in our new award process, and tabulating the
results!
REMINDER: 2005 ENVR STUDENT PAPER COMPETITION
By Lance Waller
The Section on Statistics in the Environment (ENVR) of the ASA is
sponsoring a student paper competition on the topic of Environmental
Statistics. We encourage students to submit papers on their research in
this area. The paper may consist of novel approaches to the analysis of
environmental data, new methodology applicable in the area of
environmental statistics or application of statistics to environmental
problems. The selected winner will present his/her paper in a
contributed session at the 2005 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in
Minneapolis. A small stipend is included to support student attendance
at the JSM to present the paper.
Eligibility:
Anyone who is a student in the Fall of 2004 (undergraduate, Masters, and
Ph.D.) is eligible to participate.
Entry materials:
The applicant must be the first author of the paper. In addition,
a letter must be submitted that verifies the applicant's student
status from a faculty member familiar with the student's work and,
in the case of joint authorship, indicates what fraction of the
contribution is attributable to the applicant.
Required format: The paper must be entirely double-spaced
(abstract, main body, references, footnotes and appendices), using
at least 11 point type with at least 1 inch margins all around and
no longer than 26 pages (inclusive).
All materials should be submitted by January 5, 2005
electronically only in Postscript or PDF format to Andrew Lawson
(alawson@gwm.sc.edu).
The applicant must also an abstract by February 1 to ASA and
request a presentation in an ENVR session. Applicants must follow
all rules required for paper submission and attendance at the
JSM.
Review:
Papers will be reviewed by the Student Paper Competition Award committee
of the Section on Statistics in the Environment. Selection will be based
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 early in 2005. 00The decision of the
selection committee will be final. This award will recognize an
environmental statistics contribution with a certificate and recognition
at the ASA ENVR section meeting at the JSM.
![[ASA Logo]](../asa.gif){kind=small}
![[ENVR Logo]](../statenvi.gif){kind=small}