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June 2012

Contents:



From the WSS President
Lots Going On!

As my term comes to an end I'd like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the remaining activities we have in store for our members and the greater statistical community. Our annual dinner is fast approaching--it is on June 5th. Registration for dinner closes on June 1st. Please see the flyer on the dinner included within this newsletter. The annual dinner evening includes a presentation by the Cox award winner Amy Herring on, "Beyond Age at First Sex: Modeling Patterns of Emerging Sexual Behavior in Adolescents and Young Adults." The dinner is also a wonderful way to catch up with old friends and support young talent such as the Curtis Jacobs award and poster competition winners.

On June 11th we also have a seminar on "Evaluating the Environmental Protection Agency's Leadership Development Workshops" presented by Eduardo S. Rodela, EPA. And it is not too late to register for the 2012 DC_AAPOR/WSS Summer Conference Preview/Review which brings a sample of talks from the 2012 AAPOR and JSM to us on June 21-22. This conference is particularly valuable since many of us have not been able to attend these conferences. Information on the agenda and registration can be found at http://www.dc-aapor.org/Summer_Conference_2012.htm.

And finally congratulations to the WSS members who were elected ASA Fellows. They are: Nicholas Horton, Michael Larsen, Nancy Mathiowetz, Anna Nevius and Colin Wu. Information on their accomplishments is available at http://www.amstat.org/about/pressreleases/ASANames 2012Fellows.pdf.

As always I welcome feedback. I can be reached at jonaki.bose@samhsa.hhs.gov.

Jonaki, WSS President (2011-2012)

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Please Join Us!
2012 Washington Statistical Society Annual Dinner
Tuesday, June 5th, 2012


Cox Award Presentation at RTI International 4:30PM-5:30PM
Dinner and Student Awards at Fogo de Chao 6:00-8:30PM

Guest Speaker: Amy Herring, Recipient of the 2012 Cox Award
(University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill)
Title: Beyond Age at First Sex: Modeling Patterns of Emerging Sexual
Behavior in Adolescents and Young Adults Amy Herring

The 2012 WSS annual dinner format has changed. This year the Cox Award presentation will be held at RTI International's DC office prior to the dinner. Immediately following the presentation, we will walk 3 blocks to Fogo de Chao for the annual dinner and the student awards. All are encouraged to attend both events. Please make the appropriate payment to attend the annual dinner. Please RSVP if you also plan to attend the presentation. See below for details.

Presentation Details: 4:30-5:30 pm, RTI International. 701 13th St., NW, Suite 705. Washington DC, 20005 RSVP: If you plan to attend the Cox Presentation, please e-mail Van Parsons, vparsons@cdc.gov.

Dinner Details: 6:00 - 8:30 pm, Fogo de Chao: 1101 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20004 Fogo de Chao is an all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbeque. Soft drinks are included; cash bar for other drinks.

THEY OFFER TWO OPTIONS
  1. Salad Bar Only*: Over 30 different items at the Salad Bar (salads, vegetables, cheeses, fish, cured meats, and more). For more information: http://www.fogodechao.com/menu/salad-bar/
  2. Full Buffet**: Salad bar as well as 12 different types of meats, 10 different side items and 6 different desserts. For more information. http://www.fogodechao.com/menu/dining-experience/

Payment Details: Deadline for payment is 11:59PM, Friday June 1st. No payments at the door.

* Salad Bar Only $37 for members
$42 for nonmembers
$25 for Full-time students must have 12+ credit hours. Send check for $25 or pay $47 online and receive a $20 reimbursement after dinner. ** Full Buffet $62 for members
$67 for nonmembers
Note: The student price is available for the Salad Bar Only option.

Pay by check: Payable to: "Washington Statistical Society".

Include full names of all individuals paid by the check. Indicate Salad Bar Only or Full BBQ option.

Send checks or direct questions to: Van L. Parsons, National Center for Health Statistics. 3311 Toledo Rd, Rm 3110 Hyattsville, MD 20782 (vparsons@cdc.gov)

Pay Online WSS Member - Full Buffet $62: https://www.123signup.com/register?id=smpnn
WSS Member - Salad Bar Only $37: https://www.123signup.com/register?id=smpnt
Non WSS Member - Full Buffet: $67 https://www.123signup.com/register?id=smphk
Non WSS Member - Salad Bar Only $42: https://www.123signup.com/register?id=smphm
Student - Salad Bar Only $25: https://www.123signup.com/register?id=smprf Return to top

Congratulations Award Winners!
William Nordhaus to Receive 2012 Julius Shiskin Award

William D. Nordhaus

William D. Nordhaus, Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University, has been selected to receive the 2012 Julius Shiskin Memorial Award for Economic Statistics. This award recognizes unusually original and important contributions in the development of economic statistics or in the use of statistics interpreting the economy. The award recognized Professor Nordhaus for his contributions to the measurement of environmental-economic accounts and economic welfare and his active participation with the U.S. statistical system. Professor Nordhaus becomes the 39th recipient of the award and will be honored at events hosted by the three sponsors of the award: The Washington Statistical Society, the National Association for Business Economics, and the Business and Economics Section of the American Statistical Association.

Professor Nordhaus is best known for his work in measuring economic welfare and the impact of the environment on Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which challenged the statistical systems in the United States and other countries to think more broadly about measurement issues. His research has had a major impact on economic statistics throughout the world by providing a conceptual and empirical basis for his measures and working cooperatively with the statistical community to implement new work. His 1972 monograph with the late James Tobin, Is Growth Obsolete? was among the first efforts to provide measures of economic welfare that differ from traditional measures of production, such as the GDP. That effort inspired substantial work to expand GDP and economic measurement to better record the effect of growth on economic welfare. In the United Nation's (UN) 1993 System of National Accounts, satellite accounts were added to accommodate such extensions to the national accounts, and the UN published a handbook on developing integrated economic and environmental accounts. In 1994, in "Integrated Economic and Environmental Satellite Accounts," the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) published a U.S. version of these accounts, and in 2009 the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi report on better measuring economic welfare was published, igniting another round of national and international efforts to provide measures of economic welfare. In contrast to the recommendations from some of these efforts, Professor Nordhaus has expressed skepticism about incorporating "happiness" measures into economic accounting systems.

Building on his own work, Professor Nordhaus chaired the 1999 National Academy of Sciences panel and co-edited its report Nature's Numbers: Expanding the National Accounts to Include the Environment, which recommended an empirical framework to integrate environmental and other non-market activity into GDP. He played a key role in a subsequent National Academies panel whose report, Beyond the Market, extended his study of environmental statistics to areas, such as education and health. For a 2004 National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) volume, A New Architecture for the U.S. National Accounts, he contributed an essay on applying a non-market account in the "new architecture" proposed in the volume, an essay that has already had a major impact on statistical practice on national accounting in the U.S. and many other countries. Most recently, in the May 2011 issue of the American Economic Review, he and his coauthors, published "Environmental Accounting for Pollution: Methods with an Application to the United States Economy."

Professor Nordhaus has coupled his research with extensive involvement in and leadership of the statistical system. He currently serves as a member of the BEA Advisory Committee and served as its first Chairman. As Chairman, he was extremely active in working with BEA on innovations including better integrated, more accurate and more timely industry accounts, more comprehensive measures of stock options and pensions, the expansion of services data by BEA and the Census Bureau, and a wide range of new price indexes.

Professor Nordhaus also has had a significant influence on the statistical system through his work at the National Academies of Science. In addition to his work on environmental and nonmarket accounts, he was instrumental in the preparation of major studies on price and cost of living indices and on the measurement of time use, both of which led to significant changes in federal statistical programs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) developed new ways to measure expenditures and prices for the medical sector and, in part because of his involvement in the time-use workshop, then launched the American Time Use Survey. Professor Nordhaus's other work for the Academy included improving environmental statistics and increasing our understanding of the economics of climate change.

Professor Nordhaus has served on Academy oversight committees, such as the Committee on National Statistics and the Advisory Board for the Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education, where he has worked to advance the relevance of U.S. economic statistics. In addition, he was the founder and chair of the American Economic Association's Committee on Economic Statistics, which focuses the attention of professional economists on data issues. For example, he has been a member and senior advisor of the Brookings Panel on Economic Activity, Washington, D.C. since 1972, is on the research staff of the NBER, and served on the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Experts. Although his research has focused on economic growth and environmental accounting, he has worked on the economics of climate change. He has developed economic approaches to global warming, including the construction of integrated economic and scientific models to determine an efficient path for coping with climate change. Professor Nordhaus has received numerous honors for his research work and public service, including membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Swedish Academy of Engineering. In 2004, the American Economic Association named him a "Distinguished Fellow."

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Congratulations Award Winners!
William Mockovak Receives The Jeanne Griffith Mentoring Award

Submitted by Clyde Tucker, 2012 Chair, Griffith Award Selection Committee

William Mockovak, a statistician with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), was selected to receive the 2012 Jeanne Griffith Mentoring Award. The purpose of the award is to encourage mentoring of junior staff in the statistical community in the federal, state, and local government. The award is sponsored by the Government Statistics Section, the National Opinion Research Center, Westat, the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics, the American Institutes for Research, the American Educational Research Association, and the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy. Dr. Mockovak serves as the Director of the Behavioral Science Research Center in the Office of Survey Methods Research. In this position, he has been an outstanding mentor to research staff for well over a decade. Dr. Mockovak will be presented the award at a ceremony scheduled for 4 pm on Wednesday, June 20th, at the Bureau of Labor Statistics Conference Center located at 2 Massachusetts Ave., NE, Washington, DC 20212. If you would like to attend, please email your first and last name to Clyde Tucker, nctucker@cox.net. He will add your name to the list at the guard station. Please bring a picture ID.

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Note From The WSS NEWS Editor

Items for publication in the July 2012 issue of the WSS NEWS will be accepted until the 15th day of the preceding month.

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.

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Click here to see the WSS Board Listing (pdf)
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