Washington Statistical Society
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May/June 2013

Contents:


Mark Your Calendars

The Washington Statistical Society kindly requests
your saving the date for the 2013
Cox Award Presentation
~ and ~
Annual Dinner

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Cox Award Presentation & Annual Dinner Flyer

Speaker event commences at 4:30 p.m.
Mathematica Policy Research
1100 1st St NE, Washington DC

Dinner commences at 6:00 p.m.
Hilton Garden Inn NoMA Ballroom
1225 1st St NE, Washington DC

All WSS members, family, friends, and colleagues are encouraged to attend regardless of membership status

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WSS Member Survey Results

We received 252 responses to our web-hosted survey of Washington Statistical Society members in March. Thank you to Westat for hosting the survey and providing programming assistance.

The survey asked about this newsletter—whether folks are satisfied with its content, delivery by email, frequency, and so on. A few highlights of the results are:

  • 98% say they receive the newsletter email every month
  • 87.7% say they open the newsletter email every month or most months
  • On a scale from 1 to 5, 80.2% rate the utility of the Seminar Announcements section as 4 or 5
  • 84.9% said the newsletter is the source they use most often to get information from WSS
  • On preferred frequency of the newsletter, 5.6% said more than once per month, 4.8% said less than once per month, 81.7% said monthly.

As you can see, the memebers who completed the survey are generally pleased with the newsletter. Most free-text responses were also positive. For users who indicated that a .pdf file is hard to read on a screen (especially a small screen) we recommend the HTML edition. Vince Massimini will include a link to the HTML version as he distributes this and future newsletters.

We welcome further input from those who did, and did not, complete the survey. Please send your thoughts to wsscomments@philkalina.com. All questions and comments are welcome. Several suggested topics are:

  • What other information would you like to see in the newsletter?
  • Can you suggest other ways you would like to receive information from WSS? Many events are not scheduled far enough in advance for notices to appear in a monthly newsletter. Vince has been announcing these in supplemental emails—is that the best approach or can you suggest alternatives?

Thank you for helping WSS better serve our members.

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Award Winners!
2013 Cox Award

The Washington Statistical Society (WSS) and RTI International are pleased to announce that Frauke Kreuter, Associate Professor, University of Maryland, has been chosen as this year's recipient of the 2013 Gertrude M. Cox Award. Since receiving her PhD from the University of Konstanz in 2001, Dr. Kreuter has made many noteworthy contributions in the area of survey methodology, specifically survey nonresponse, measurement error, and statistical modeling, all contributing to new insights in the field. She will receive the Award at the WSS Annual Dinner Meeting on Tuesday, June 25, 2013 and will give the Keynote Address, "Big Data in Survey Research — Analyzing Process Information (Paradata)".

The Award, established in 2003 through a joint agreement between WSS and RTI, recognizes statisticians in early to mid-career who have made significant contributions to statistical practice.

The award is in memory of Gertrude M. Cox (1900-1978), who in the 1950s, when Head of the Department of Experimental Statistics at North Carolina State College, played a key role in establishing Mathematical Statistics and Biostatistics Departments at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a Statistical Division at the then newly founded not-for-profit RTI.

This award is made possible by funding from RTI. The recipient is chosen by a six person committee - three each from RTI and WSS. This year's committee from RTI consists of Marcus Berzofsky, Phil Kott, and Karol Krotki (Co-Chair), and from WSS Nancy Bates, Jonaki Bose, and Keith Rust (Co-Chair). The award consists of a $1,000 honorarium, travel expenses to attend the WSS dinner, and a WSS plaque. Past recipients have been, in chronological order: Sharon Lohr, Alan Zaslavsky, Tom Belin, Vance Berger, Francesca Domenici, Thomas Lumley, Jean Opsomer, Michael Elliott, Nilanjan Chatterjee, and Amy Herring.

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Award Winners!
Winners of Statistics2013 Video Contest Revealed

The big winner of the Statistics2013 Video Contest—sponsored by Wiley—was an 18-year-old high-school student from Brimfield, Massachusetts in the United States. Jason T. Girouard claimed the top honor—the Best Overall Video—and his production also was awarded first place in the "Best Video by a Person or Persons 18 Years of Age or Less" category, giving him top billing in two of the competition's three categories. The Best Non-English Language Video prize was awarded to the Hungarian Central Statistical Office for its production titled "That is What We Are".

You can view the list of all winners and watch their videos at www.statistics2013.org.

All other news are available in the latest International Year of Statistics newsletter, http://www.statistics2013.org/files/2013/05/May-6-2013.pdf. Past newsletters can be reviewed at http://www.statistics2013.org/participant-newsletter- archive/.

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Be Informed And Get Involved!
Latest News on International Year of Statistics

The latest International Year of Statistics newsletter is available at http://www.statistics2013.org/files/2013/04/April-8-2013.pdf. Past newsletters can be reviewed at http://www.statistics2013.org/participant-newsletter-archive/.

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Be Informed And Get Involved!
Washington Statistical Society's Spotlight on Members Program

The WSS Board of Directors has established a program to highlight members who have made or are making notable contributions to the work of their organization or their professional field of expertise. We know that WSS members are doing interesting work in the fields of statistics, survey methodology, and the social sciences. Through this program, we hope to spotlight the accomplishments of our fellow WSS members.

This is our first request for nominations, to be featured in an upcoming issue of WSS News. We are interested in featuring members at all levels of the employment spectrum including recent graduates, mid-career employees, and those seasoned veterans. Please feel free to nominate more than one person or a team working together. You may also nominate yourself as well. The nominees must be members of the WSS and not currently affiliated with the Board.

Please provide us with the following information about your nominee or nominees.

  1. Your name, email address, and telephone number
  2. Name or names of nominee(s)
  3. Organizational affiliation
  4. Job title
  5. Their contact information including email address and telephone number
  6. A brief narrative describing the reasons for your nomination
  7. A photo of the nominee, although not required, would be great be greatly appreciated

Please send this information to Mel Kollander, member of the WSS Board. His email address is mellk@erols.com. If you have any questions please contact Mel. We look forward to hearing from you.

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Be Informed And Get Involved!
Join the WSS Meetup

The Washington Statistical Society has begun to use Meetup to help spread the word about WSS events. Members are invited to join at http://meetup.com/WashStat/ for benefits such as:

  • Notices and reminders of WSS events
  • Ability to indicate whether you will attend
  • Opportunity to offer suggestions and other feedback.

Users can specify their preferences for email and other features.

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Be Informed And Get Involved!
WSS Webmaster Needed

The Washington Statistical Society asks your help locating a volunteer to take on the job of webmaster.

Webmaster has long been a key role at WSS. The WSS website (http://washstat.org/) is updated much more frequently than this newsletter--whenever news of interest to our members becomes available. The webmaster also developed, maintains, and runs the scripts that implement our annual and special elections.

The WSS webmaster should have knowledge of current web technologies and pay careful attention to detail. Ideally, he or she will be familiar with WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, or other content management systems so he or she can help decentralize website maintenance. The webmaster should also know php so she or he can implement, maintain, and improve the scripts we use for elections and other special purposes.

Please ask within your organizations and elsewhere for someone to take on these important tasks. We also are looking for someone to help maintain and coordinate our various calendar listings. Contact Phil Kalina, Communications Officer, for more information.

Thank you for helping WSS better serve our members.

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Note From The WSS NEWS Editor

Items for publication in the July/August, 2013* issue of the WSS NEWS will be accepted until the 15th day of the preceding month.

* Monthly publications of WSS News will resume in the following September.

Email items to wss.editor@gmail.com.

Please submit all materials in MS WORD or plain text.

Please do not submit your items in pdf or include them in the body of an email.

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Click here to see the WSS Board Listing (pdf)
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