Support for the Fourth International Joint IMS-ISBA Conference

项目概述从研究设计阶段一直到最后的分析和报告撰写，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。统计学家还在无数的科学审查和咨询小组中任职，并为实质性领域的研究人员提供统计培训和咨询。最后，发展新的统计方法来解释来自临床、观察和实验室研究的数据是统计努力的一个关键领域。因此，能够交流新思想的学术会议对统计科学的发展非常重要。国际会议虽然由于其规模和费用而变得罕见，但却特别有益，因为与会者可以接触到通常在自己国家熟悉的期刊上看不到甚至读不到的想法和同事。初级统计研究人员参加这些会议的好处和必要性特别大，因为这些会议对他们的专业发展做出了巨大贡献，并有助于与更成熟的高级研究人员“公平竞争”。在这份申请中，我们请求支持第四届国际数理统计学会（IMS）和国际贝叶斯分析学会（ISBA）联合会议，该会议将于2011年1月5日（周三）至1月7日（周五）在犹他州帕克城举行。会议的一个中心主题将是马尔科夫链蒙特卡洛（MCMC）和应用于环境健康问题的相关方法。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): PROJECT SUMMARY 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. 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, 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 mightily to their professional development and help "level the playing field" with more established senior investigators. In this application, we request support for the Fourth International Joint Meeting of the IMS (Institute of Mathematical Statistics) and ISBA (the International Society for Bayesian Analysis), to be held in Park City, Utah on Wednesday, January 5 to Friday, January 7, 2011. A central theme of the conference will be Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) and related methods applied to environmental health problems. The lion's share of the support we seek is to support the travel expenses of junior investigators, 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. 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. We have a commitment from ISBA to provide partial travel support for 10 young recent PhDs from economically disadvantaged countries. The specific goals and the anticipated benefits from the conference are: 7 to promote the continued development of statistical theory and applications in environmental health sciences, biomedicine and other areas; 7 to explore the interplay of classical and Bayesian statistical methods in the context of specific areas of research; 7 to provide an opportunity for researchers to discuss an area in some depth, by allowing ample time for presentations on a specific subject; 7 to motivate young researchers to conduct research in the conference's focus areas that provide ample opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration; 7 to encourage young researchers and students to present their work, interact with senior colleagues, and make contact with their peers in a friendly, small meeting environment; 7 to include a large portion of researchers and students from underrepresented groups among participants, and provide the opportunity for one-on-one discussions with colleagues from other institutions; 7 to encourage refereed versions of the conference's best papers (both invited and contributed) in Bayesian Analysis, the official journal of ISBA, available online at ba.stat.cmu.edu. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The Fourth International Joint Meeting of the IMS (Institute of Mathematical Statistics) and ISBA (the International Society for Bayesian Analysis) has targeted environmental health statistics as one of the main topics, with the potential for positive impact on participants that is likely to have broader implications for environmental health statistical research, having a direct relationship to advancing the mission of NIEHS. The ultimate payoff will be not only those junior researchers will enhance their potential for career success, but that the greater research community will enjoy the reflected benefits of better-prepared statistical collaborators poised to solve new methodological challenges, in particular in environmental health problems, more successfully.