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Volume 32, Number 1 Newsletter March 6, 2000 Spring Meeting - April 14, 2000 Keynote Speaker: Donald Berry Presentation Title: "Taking the Bayesian Approach in Science and Medicine". Time: 9:00 A.M. - 4:45 P.M.Where: Main Seminar Room (Room 1022) The chapter is pleased to have Dr. Donald Berry as the Keynote Speaker. Dr. Berry is the chairman of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Center. We are also pleased to announce that Dr. Robert Shumway, Division of Statistics, University of California at Davis, will speak on "Environmental Applications of Structural Models With Switching". In addition to our out-of-state guests, a number of reports and talks from members of the local chapter are planned. Our chapter president, Brad Warner, will review the teachers’ workshop co-sponsored by the chapter this February. Member representatives of sponsoring companies will briefly discuss the role of statistics in their businesses. Three new faculty members at local universities will present talks on their current research. They are Craig Johns, the University of Colorado at Denver; Thomas Lee, Colorado State University; and Shaun Wulff, the University of Wyoming. There will also be a session on research conducted by members of the Geophysical Statistics Project at NCAR. Spring Meeting, Preliminary Schedule: 9:00am to 9:30am Registration 9:30am to 10:00am Introduction, update on the chapter-sponsored teaching conference in February, and information about local sponsors. 10:00am - 11:30am Keynote Address by D. Berry 11:30am - 1:00pm Lunch 1:00pm - 4:45pm Talks, including afternoon break, and a possible tour of one of the instrumentation facilities at NCAR. Again, the meeting will be held in the Main Seminar Room (Room 1022), NCAR Foothills Lab 2, located at 47th and Mitchell Lane, north of Valmont. The main seminar room is located in building 2 (of 3), and is on the main floor. (Note: this location is not the highly visible Mesa Labs.) A map, as well as directions, are available at http://www.scd.ucar.edu/info/maps/
Registration:
Colo-Wy 2000 Spring Meeting Registration Name:__________________________________________________________________ Affiliation:_______________________________________________________________ Address:________________________________________________________________ Phone:__________________ email:___________________________________________
Make checks payable to: Colo-Wyo Chapter of ASA $8.00 for regular members Send above information as well as payment to S. Huzurbazar (email: lata@uwyo.edu)
Member Activities The keynote speaker for the spring meeting works in the area of biostatistics. As it turns out, a significant portion of the local chapter’s membership also works in this area. This has piqued the curiosity of your editor, so an unscientific survey was conducted of selected members of the local chapter. The names were haphazardly chosen going down the list of members who met the dual criteria of appearing to work in the health field and having E-mail addresses. Three people were gracious enough to reply.
Dr. Richard (Dick) Jones is a Professor of Biometrics at the Department of Preventive Medicine and Biometrics at the School of Medicine, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Both MS and Ph’D degrees in biometrics are offered at that institution. Dr. Jones comments that there is a strong market for people trained in biostatistics with either degree. Their graduates work for both governmental agencies and private companies and institutions. Dick and his colleagues work on a number of research projects, often from the NIH, which involve longitudinal data analysis, survival analysis and power analysis. He personally enjoys methodology development and is presently working on algorithms for longitudinal analysis for non-linear and non-Guassian models.
Julie Wolf works in the Life Sciences Division of Gilead Sciences, Inc., where she is the manager of Biostatistics. The bulk of her time is spent in support of Toxicological and Pharmacokinetic (preclinical and clinical) Research. While she is primarily responsible for the support of all pre-clinical functions including Pharmacology, she will also help other groups in the company. Julie particularly enjoys participating as part of the team which determines the safety and efficacy of new drugs. As one of two statisticians at the company she finds that she must be adaptable and learn "bits and pieces" of the various sorts of preclinical research. She states that a pharmaceutical biostatistician must be able to combine statistical expertise with a general knowledge of medicine and pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Brad Biggerstaff is employed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases in Ft. Collins. His title is Mathematical Statistician and he reports that he is the only statistician at the site. This means that he not only collaborates on a wide variety of research, but he gets to teach statistical methods to other researchers at the center. His duties also include statistical programming for several software platforms. Brad works with epidemiologists, microbiologists, veterinarians, entomologists and geneticists, among others. Examples of the types of projects he has collaborated on include modeling the frequency of human plague using climatic covariates, Seroprevelance survey of West Nile virus antibody in New York City and another survey in Laredo, TX and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico for dengue virus. He has also collaborated on projects involving Lyme disease. These projects require the application of imputation, longitudinal analysis, bootstrap methods, linear, non-linear and logistic regression among others.
Chapter News
Maurice Davies Memorial Awards The last issue of the newsletter listed the recipients of the 1999 Maurice Davies Memorial Award. The name of one student was inadvertently missed and is presented here. We extend our belated congratulations to John Munn of the University of Denver. This is also the time to submit nominees for the 2000 Maurice Davies Memorial Awards. The awards are available for outstanding statistics majors from schools in the chapter area, in honor of Maurice Davies, a founder of the chapter. One undergraduate or graduate student from a school may receive an award. If a department desires to present such an award, please send the name of the student to the chapter president by March 24, 2000. Teachers Workshop The local chapter joined with Cherry Creek High School and the U.S. Air Force Academy to sponsor a workshop for area high school advanced placement statistics teachers. The workshop was held on February 5 at the Air Force Academy. Our chapter president, Brad Warner, was one of the organizers of the event. Jim Luhring of Cherry Creek High School and Marie Revak of the USAFA also participated in the organizing of the event. Brad, Jim and Marie all gave presentations on classroom activities. Other presenters included Johanna Lewis of Cherry Creek High School, Jack Powers of Ball Corporation and David Thiel who traveled all the way from Nevada to participate. An emphasis was placed on having the students analyze data which they had collected themselves. Regression was demonstrated by measuring how far a ball could be catapulted. (It was rumored that gummy bears and popsicle sticks could take the place of the ball and catapult.) Survey questions which the students could take about themselves and their families led to many interesting applications. A great favorite, for obvious reasons, was studying the distribution of different colors in a sample of M&Ms. Dice with various number of sides were used to model probability studies. Officer Nominations: It is that time of the year for nominations for various officers of the local chapter. Open positions include President-Elect, Secretary and Newsletter Editor. The president-elect in effect serves for two years, the first as president-elect and then as President in the second year. The first year, however, is anything but inactive. By tradition, the president-elect plans the spring meeting, naturally with the assistance of other officers and members. The secretary serves for two years and is responsible for maintaining chapter records and distribution of the newsletter. The newsletter editor serves for three years and is responsible for compiling two to three newsletters per year. Interested parties may should forward their names to Snehalata Huzurbazar at the University of Wyoming. E-mail: lata@uwyo.edu
Communications Do you have a question or want to voice a concern? Contact any of the local chapter officers. The e-mail addresses for our other officers are:
President President - Elect Brad Warner Snehalata Huzurbazar brad.warner@usafa.af.mil lata@uwyo.edu
ASA Chapter Rep Secretary Karen Kafadar Wallace Erickson kk@math.cudenver.edu werickson@west-inc.com
Webmaster Newsletter Editor Jim zumBrunnen Jack Powers zumbrunnen@stat.colostate.edu jpowers@ball.com
Membership Dues Please check you mailing label. The date on the right side shows when your membership in the local chapter expires. Colorado-Wyoming Chapter annual dues are $6.00 per year for regular members and $2.00 per year for student members. You may pay chapter dues through ASA headquarters, along with your society dues, OR you may pay them directly to the chapter treasurer. National membership is not a prerequisite for membership and participation in chapter activities.
Please Note: paying the chapter directly results in the chapter getting the whole $6 vs. $5 if it is sent to ASA national headquarters. A dues payment form is on the back of this page. Please make checks payable to CO-WY ASA. Please note that we have a new treasurer. Bill Navidi has agreed to take on this post. Payments should be mailed to our treasurer at the following address: Bill Navidi Dues Form
NAME (first, middle initial, last) ________________________________________________________ ORGANIZATION___________________________________________________________________ MAILING ADDRESS_______________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________ CITY_________________________________ STATE___________ ZIP______________________ PHONE (include area code)___________________________ E-MAIL________________________ MAY WE POST YOUR NAME AND E-MAIL ON OUR HOMEPAGE UNDER MEMBERS? __________
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