BIOMETRICS SECTION NEWS, JUNE 2008
Edited by Ralitza Gueorguieva, Biometrics Section Publications Officer

EXCITING PROGRAM AT THE 2008 JSM
The theme of this year's Joint Statistical Meetings, August 3 - August 7 in Denver , Colorado is "Communicating Statistics: Speaking Out and Reaching Out”. The Biometrics Section's Mixer and Business meeting will be on Monday August 4th. Come voice your opinion on what activities you would like the section to undertake.

The Biometrics Section is proud to co-sponsor one continuing education course:

• “ Statistical Challenges in Proteomics ”, by Scott C. Schmidler on 8/3 from 8:30AM to 5:00PM.

In addition, the Biometrics section is sponsoring an exciting program of invited sessions and talks spanning a broad range of topics in Biostatistics. The titles and organizers are as follows:

• "Time Series Analysis via Mechanistic Models," organized by Ed Ionides, University of Michigan .
• "A New Paradigm of Statistical Data Analysis - `Omics' data'," organized by Susmita Datta, University of Louisville .
• "New Statistical and Computational Methods for Analysis of Genomic Data with a Graphical Structure," organized by Hongzhe Li, University of Pennsylvania .
• "Statistical Methods for Multivariate Dental Data," organized by Tom Braun, University of Michigan .
• "Challenges of Statistical Inference in `Large p , Small n ' Problems,” organized by Annie Qu, Oregon State University
• "Directing a Biostatistics Core in Biomedical Research," organized by Michael Hudgens, University of North Carolina .

The Biometrics Section would like to thank Mahlet Tadesse, our JSM Continuing Education Chair, and Debashis Ghosh, our JSM Program Chair for their wonderful job in organizing the course and sessions. Check the online program at the 2008 JSM web site (available through the ASA web site www.amstat.org ) for updates on locations and times.

ENAR 2009
It is time to think about invited sessions for ENAR 2009, which will be held March 15-18 in San Antonio , Texas . Anyone who is interested in organizing an invited session or who has ideas for one, please contact our 2009 Program Chair, Jinbo Chen, at jinboche@mail.med.upenn.edu .

A typical session consists of three 30-minute talks followed by a 30-minute discussion, or four 30-minute talks.  Decisions will be made in June so don't delay. The more detailed the proposal, the better the chance that the proposal will be selected in this highly competitive process.

JSM 2009
It's also already time to start thinking about invited sessions for next year's Joint Statistical Meetings, which will be held August 2 – August 6, 2009 in Washington , DC . Anyone who is interested in organizing an invited session or who has ideas for one, please contact our 2009 Program Chair, Wensheng Guo , at wguo@mail.med.upenn.edu .

A typical invited session consists of three 30-minute talks followed by a 10-minute invited discussion and 10 minutes of floor discussion. However, other formats are possible. The 2008 program is a good source for examples. Decisions will be made in July, so don't delay! 

Please also submit ideas for short courses our 2009-2010 Continuing Education Chair Gerald Heatley at jerry.heatley@thoratec.com .

ASA Biometrics Section Strategic Initiative Results

Drs. Page C. Moore and Song T. Ounpraseuth were awarded one of the two grants for the 2007 ASA Biometrics Strategic Initiative: Developing the Next Generation of Biostatisticians. Their grant was entitled: “A Synergistic Effort to Recruit Future Biostatisticians in Arkansas High Schools”. A description of the project is provided below.

A Synergistic Effort to Recruit Future Biostatisticians in Arkansas High Schools
By Page C. Moore, Assistant Professor, Department of Biostatistics

University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

The objective of our project was to raise awareness of the discipline of biostatistics and career opportunities in biostatistics to central Arkansas high school students involved in the Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics program. This was done by

• Phase 1: Presenting one one-hour discussions to eight central Arkansas high schools on the following topics: “What is Biostatistics?”, “What do Biostatisticians do?”, and “How can I become a Biostatistician?”
• Phase 2: Enrolling schools as K-12 ASA members and distributing presentations and biostatistics materials to all visited high schools as well as all Arkansas public high schools offering AP Statistics courses that were not a recipient of one of our site visits.

In phase 1, thirteen total central Arkansas high schools AP Statistics classrooms were visited in all. Teacher and student feedback was collected and evaluated after each presentation and adjustments were made as necessary before the next presentation. The overall reception to the presentation was outstanding and most of the students reported as being more interested in the field of statistics after experiencing our presentation.

In Phase 2 of the grant, a total of 30 high schools, every Arkansas public school and private school offering an AP Statistics course, were enrolled as K-12 ASA members. This membership includes a teacher's subscription to “Statistics Teachers Network” newsletter, Chance , and STATS magazine. Teaching packets were also mailed to all schools. This teaching packet included the final version of presentation slides as well as a letter describing our grant and the purpose of the included materials.