AmStat Section News,
October 2007

Devin S. Johnson, Publications Chair

New Environmetric Research Center in Pacific Northwest

by Peter Guttorp

The Pacific Intstitute of Mathematical Sciences, one of three mathematical sciences institutes in Canada, has awarded some 200,000 Canadian dollars to a consortium of universities planning a multi-site research center in environmetrics. The focus of the collaborative research group, funded for two years, is Georisk and Climate Change. The project started with a joint workshop with some 75 participants in Semiahmoo just south of the US-Canadian border on January 23-24.

The principal investigators of the proposal are Charmaine Dean, Simon Fraser University, Sylvia Esterby, University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Peter Guttorp, University of Washington and Jim Zidek, University of British Columbia-Vancouver. Other participants come from University of Victoria, Washington State University, and University of Calgary.

One of the goals of the project is to produce a certificate in environmetrics, which can be obtained at either of the universities, using courses offered jointly. Video-presentations of lectures, electronic communications, etc. will be utilized to make material available at other campuses than where the course is given.

The research group will organize a variety of workshops, summer schools, and conferences. The first summer school on Space-time modeling had 30 participants and was taught by Peter Guttorp, Paul Sampson, Jim Zidek and Douw Steyn at the University of Washington campus in July. Among the conferences are the first North American Regional TIES meeting in Seattle in June, 2007 and the international TIES 2008 meeting coming up in Kelowna in 2008.

Information about the projects under this umbrella will be found at the NRCSE web site, www.nrcse.washington.edu. The acronym now stands for Northwest Research Center for Statistics and the Environment.

 

JSM 2008 News

by Andrew Lawson

We have three sessions for Denver 2008 currently 'on the books': one allocated by Richard Smith on 'Statistical Aspects of Regional Climate modeling' with such speakers as Cari Kaufman (SAMSI), Linda Mearns(NCAR), and Steve Sain (NCAR). In addition we have two exciting sessions in competition focused on climate change: one organized by Monserrat Fuentes on 'Health/biological imprint of climate and atmospherics and featuring talks by Brad Carlin, Francesca Dominici, Doug Nychka and Michelle Bell and the other organized by David Marker on 'The Role of Statisticians in Understanding Climate Change' with speakers such as Claudia Tebaldi (Rand), David Marker (Westat), Doug Nychka (NCAR) and discussant Mary Christman (UFl).