AmStat Section News,
December 2006

Jennifer Hoeting, Publications Chair

Farewell from the outgoing ENVR Chair Jay Ver Hoef

My term as chair is almost over.  I just want to thank all of the members of the ENVR section for making this a successful year.  I especially want to thank all of the elected officers and committee members who worked very hard this year.  Next year will be even better with Mary Christman taking over as chair of ENVR.  I especially want to thank Jennifer Hoeting for giving us these Amstat News articles over the last 2 years.  Her term is over too.  Devin Johnson will take over, and I’m sure he’ll continue the tradition of excellence.

 

JSM 2006 Presentation Award

We are very pleased to announce that Melanie Autin of the University of South Carolina is the recipient of the 2006 Section on Statistics and the Environment JSM Presentation award. This award recognizes the presentation quality of Melanie's JSM 2006 talk, titled "Nonparametric Harmonic Regression for Estuarine Water Quality Data” (co-author Don Edwards, University of South Carolina).

Congratulations Melanie! This award is based on audience evaluations of the JSM 2006 contributed and special contributed talks in sessions primarily sponsored by the Section on Statistics and the Environment. 

The section looks forward to recognizing another outstanding contributed or special contributed presentation from JSM 2007, in Salt Lake City.

 

2007 ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS STUDENT PAPER AWARD

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 with a clear application to an environmental statistical issue, or application of statistics to environmental problems. The selected winner will present his/her paper in a contributed session at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in August 2007. The winner will receive a $1,000 stipend towards reimbursing the expenses for attending the JSM.

Eligibility: Anyone who is a student in the Fall of 2006 (undergraduate, Masters, and Ph.D.) is eligible to participate.

Application 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. The applicant must also submit 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.

Required paper 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). Materials must be submitted electronically only in Postscript or PDF format. All materials must be in English.

Deadline: January 5, 2007 at 5:00 PM EST. Submit materials to the email address below.

Review Process: 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 2007. The 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.

Inquiries and application materials should be e-mailed to:
Jenise L. Swall, Ph.D.
Atmospheric Sciences Modeling Division, NOAA
Swall.Jenise@epamail.epa.gov

 

Upcoming conferences of interest to ENVR members

Spatial and Spatio-Temporal Statistics

The 32nd Annual Spring Lectures in the Mathematical Sciences will take place April 12-14, 2007 in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The main goal of this lecture series is to bring together leading experts, young researchers and graduate students in the area of spatial and spatio-temporal statistics. Funds are available to support some Ph.D. students and recent graduates. Further information can be obtained at the conference web site: http://comp.uark.edu/~jjsong/SLS2007/

 

TIES Conference:  North American Regional Meeting

Seattle, WA, June 17-21, 2007.

The International Environmetrics Society (TIES) will arrange a North American Regional Meeting at the University of Washington in Seattle June 19-21, 2007. The meeting will emphasize climate change and its environmental effects: monitoring, measuring, and predicting. The meeting is co-sponsored by the ENVR section.

The organizing committee consists of Peter Guttorp, University of Washington; Ashley Steel, NOAA Seattle; Emily Silverman, University of Michigan; Joel Reynolds, USFWS Alaska; Eliane Rodrigues, UNAM, Mexico City and Jim Zidek, University of British Columbia. Keynote speakers are Paul Switzer, Stanford University, and David Brillinger, University of California at Berkeley.

Program and registration information will be available on the meeting web site at http://www.stat.washington.edu/peter/TIES%20NA07.html