Travel Support for the 3rd International Joint IMS-ISBA Conference

统计学家在生物医学、环境和公共卫生数据的分析中发挥着不可或缺的作用，从研究设计阶段一直到最终分析和报告撰写。可以交流新思想的学术会议对推动统计科学向前发展非常重要。当然，由于规模和费用的原因，国际会议比较少见，但特别有益，因为它们允许与会者接触到与会者通常不会在本国熟悉的期刊上看到的想法和同事，甚至是读到的。初级统计研究人员参加这种会议的好处和需要特别大，因为他们对他们的专业发展做出了很大贡献，并帮助与更成熟的高级调查人员建立了竞争环境。这笔赠款将为2008年1月9日星期三至1月11日星期五在意大利博尔米奥举行的数学统计研究所和国际贝叶斯分析学会第三次国际联席会议提供支助。会议的一个中心主题将是马尔可夫链蒙特卡罗(MCMC)及其相关方法和应用，范围从金融到技术，特别侧重于生物统计学中具有挑战性的问题。所有赠款资金将用于资助初级生物统计研究人员的旅费，即在统计学、生物统计学或密切相关领域攻读博士或博士学位的人，或在会议前五年内获得此类学位的人。

Statisticians play an indispensable role in the analysis of biomedical, environmental and public health data, from the study design stage all the way through to final analysis and report-writing. Scholarly conferenceswhere new ideas can be exchanged are important for statistical science to move forward. International meetings, while of course rarer due to their size and expense, are particularly beneficial since they permit exposure to ideas and colleagues the attendee might not ordinary see or even read about in the familiarjournals of one's own country. The benefit of and need for attendance at such meetings by junior statistical researchers is particularly great, since they contribute mightily to their professional development and helplevel the playing field with more established senior investigators. This grant will provide support for the Third International Joint Meeting of the IMS (Institute of Mathematical Statistics) and ISBA (the International Society for Bayesian Analysis), to be held in Bormio, Italy on Wednesday, January 9 to Friday, January 11, 2008. A central theme of the conference will be Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) andrelated methods and applications ranging from finance to technology, with specific focus on challenging problems in biostatistics. All grant funds will be used to support the travel expenses of junior biostatisticalinvestigators, i.e., persons pursuing a PhD or DrPH in statistics, biostatistics, or a closely related field, or who have received such a degree within the five years preceding the conference.