Travel Support for the 11th ISBA World Meeting on Bayesian Statistics

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In this application, the PI requests support for the World Meeting of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA), to be held in Kyoto, Japan, June 25-29, 2012. A central theme of the conference will be Bayesian modeling, Bayesian theory, and applications. The applications will range from biology to finance to technology, with specific focus on challenging large-scale problems. The funds sought are to support the travel expenses of junior investigators, i.e., persons pursuing a PhD or DrPH in statistics, biostatistics, applied mathematics, or a closely related field, or who have received such a degree within the five years preceding the conference. Such investigators are often doing research that is among the most novel, interesting, and important for international dissemination, yet lack the travel funds necessary to attend such a conference, since they have not yet established a publication track record sufficient to attract external travel and other funding for their work. Refereed versions of the conference's best papers (both invited and contributed) will be published in Bayesian Analysis, the official journal of ISBA (available online at ba.stat.cmu.edu). Further disseminatation of conference-related materials will be done as widely as possible, by posting some of the presentations on the ISBA web site at www.bayesian.org.Statisticians play an indispensable role in the analysis of biomedical, environmental, financial, and public health data, from the study design stage all the way through to final analysis and report-writing. Statisticians also serve on a myriad of scientific review and advisory panels, as well as provide statistical training and consulting to substantive area researchers. Finally, the development of new statistical methodology for interpretation of data from clinical, observational, and laboratory studies is a key area of statistical endeavor. As a result, scholarly conferences where new ideas can be exchanged are important for statistical science to move forward. International meetings -- like the World Meeting of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA) -- 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 familiar journals 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 greatly to their professional development and help ``level the playing field'' with more established senior investigators. The anticipated benefits from the conference include promoting the continued development of statistical theory and applications in engineering, finance, technology, environmental science, biomedicine and other areas, and exploring the interplay of classical and Bayesian statistical methods in the context of specific areas of research, with particular emphasis on large-scale computation. Disseminatation of conference-related materials will be done as widely as possible, by publishing in "Bayesian Analysis", the official journal of ISBA available online at ba.stat.cmu.edu, and posting some of the presentations on the ISBA web site at www.bayesian.org.