Biometrics
Award Winners, Member Initiative
Results Announced
Edited by Ralitza Gueorguieva, Biometrics Section Publications Officer
null
Travel award winners received
$500 to apply toward their travel
Byar Award Committee Members
expenses to JSM so they could
Katie Kerr Daniel Heitjan
present their papers
null
.
University of University of
Washington Pennsylvania
Amita Manatunga Tom Ten Have
Emory University University of
T
he David P. Byar Young Investigator Award is given annu-
Pennsylvania
ally by the Biometrics Section to a new researcher who
Paul Vos
presents an original manuscript at the Joint Statistical
East Carolina University
Meetings. The award commemorates David Byar, an internation-
ally known biostatistician who made significant contributions to
Jeremy Taylor
the development and application of statistical methods during his
University of Michigan
career at the National Cancer Institute. This year, there were 22
papers submitted, with three travel award winners chosen in addi-
Member Initiative Results
tion to the Byar award winner.
Rebecca Hubbard, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of
For the last four years, the section has awarded small grants for
Washington, was chosen for the David P. Byar Young Investigator
biostatistics outreach to raise the awareness of biostatistics among
Award. She received a $1,000 award for her paper, “Modeling
undergraduates and high-school students. Another round of awards
Risk Factors for Alzheimer’s Disease Progression Using a
will be solicited in the fall.
Nonhomogeneous Markov Process,” which she presented at JSM
The 2007 grant was for developing the next generation of bio-
in Denver.
statisticians by reaching out to AP Statistics students. It was imple-
Additionally, the following three section members were given
mented by Roslyn A. Stone, John W. Wilson, Eleanor Feingold,
this year’s travel awards:
Maria M. Brooks, and Carol Washburn of the University of
Pittsburgh and Mark Zilinskas of Indiana Area High School.
• Hongyu Miao, a faculty member in the Department of
The purpose of the AP outreach project is to educate AP
Biostatistics and Computational Biology at the University of
Statistics students, teachers, and parents about the role of statistics
Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, for “Differential
and statisticians in collaborative research. Many of these students
Equation Modeling of HIV Viral Fitness Experiments: Model
are interested in science, but are unaware of the role statistics plays
Identification, Model Selection, and Multimodel Inference”
in scientific research.
• Megan Othus, a doctoral candidate in the Department
The first phase of the project was to adapt oral presentations
of Biostatistics at Harvard University, for “A Class of
of four of our own research projects so they highlighted how basic
Semiparametric Mixture Cure Survival Models with Dependent
statistical concepts are used or generalized to address important
Censoring”
scientific questions. The team also highlighted the importance of
oral and written communication skills.
• Ronglai Shen, a member of the Department of Epidemiology
The team prepared presentations to address specific AP Statistics
and Biostatistics at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center,
and Pennsylvania learning objectives, provided take-home materi-
for “Reconstructing Tumor-Wise Protein Expression in Tissue
als, and developed relevant, in-class activities. Their slides were in
Microarray Studies Using a Bayesian Cell Mixture Model”
a standardized format, and they assembled a packet of information
Travel award winners received $500 to apply toward their travel
including the slides, the corresponding publications, and an infor-
expenses to JSM so they could present their papers. All winners
mal paragraph about each of our backgrounds.
received a certificate and plaque commemorating their awards at
They also administered a short (four-item) written survey, ask-
the Biometrics Section business meeting.
ing students to tell whether they knew what biostatistics is (most
The committee was enthusiastic about the response and excep-
did not), to summarize something they learned (most took copious
tional quality of applications. Section officers thank all applicants
notes on the first presentation), and to list what they liked about
and committee members for their excellent work.
and suggestions for improving the two-hour session. Most students
44 AMSTAT NEWS AUGUST 2008
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68