AmStat Section News,
November 2007

Devin S. Johnson, Publications Chair

CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences: a focus on environmental informatics

by Bronwyn Harch

The Environmental Informatics research group within Australia’s premier scientific research organisation, CSIRO, has a strong record of improving the understanding of environmental systems by developing and using innovative statistical and mathematical methodologies.

The Environmental Informatics group conducts statistical research and consulting to enhance the management and utilisation at Australia’s natural resources and environment.

We form strong collaborative industry and research partnerships to undertake problem-focused research on smarter information use. We deliver leading-edge solutions and services that yield economic, environmental and social benefits. We work on exciting problems across multiple disciplines – mathematics, statistics and engineering – and our aim is to make a difference and have impact.

Our approaches, applied to major environmental issues, assist effective identification, monitoring and remediation of issues including climate change, sustainable fisheries, land use change and coastal water quality.

 

Research

Our researchers apply their skills in statistical and mathematical sciences to contribute to the understanding of key environmental issues.  Current research includes:

• developing and using statistical and computational methods to integrate and analyse remotely sensed and other spatial data over time
• developing statistical design and modelling technologies to enable monitoring, forecasting and management of water demand, supply and quality including ecosystem health
• contributing reliable information for important fisheries management decisions about catch quotas, season length and more.

 

Collaboration

The Environmental Informatics group boasts a history of collaboration with some of the world’s leading research bodies.  Through the successful Visitors Programme, the group has collaborated with organisations such as National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) National Marine Mammal Lab (NMML), The Ohio State University Department of Statistics and the Centre for Research into Ecological and Environmental Modelling (CREEM) at the University of St Andrews, Scotland.  A project has recently been established between our statisticians and the Institute of Atmospheric Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

For more information about environmental statistics at CSIRO please visit www.csiro.au  and click on the ‘CSIRO Mathematical Information Sciences’ division link. 

 

In other ENVR news... 

2007 JSM Presentation Award winner!

We are very pleased to announce that Lisa Madsen is the recipient of the 2007 Section on Statistics and the Environment JSM Presentation Award. This award recognizes the outstanding presentation quality of Lisa's JSM 2007 talk entitled "Maximum Likelihood for Spatially Correlated Discrete Data." The award is based on audience evaluations of the JSM 2007 Contributed and Topic Contributed talks in sessions primarily sponsored by the Section on Statistics and the Environment.  Lisa is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Statistics at Oregon State University and is Vice President of the Oregon Chapter of ASA and a member of the Section on Statistics and the Environment. Congratulations Lisa! The Section looks forward to recognizing another outstanding Contributed or Topic Contributed presentation at JSM 2008 in Denver!

Student Paper Competition Announcement for JSM 2008

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 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Denver, CO in August 2008 and a stipend will be provided to cover travel expenses.  Anyone who is a student (undergraduate, Masters, and Ph.D.) in the Fall of 2007 is eligible to participate in the competition.  The applicant must be the first author of the paper and 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.  Applications must be submitted to Kate Calder, Chair of the ENVR Student Paper Competition Committee, by 5pm EST on Friday, January 4th, 2008 via email (calder@stat.osu.edu).