Newsletter June 2019

ICSA Member News, June 2019

A. Highlights

1. Candidates for 2020 President Elect

               

Dr. Jie Chen                   Dr. Colin Wu

Dr. Chen, Jie

[PRESENT POSITION] Distinguished Scientist, Biostatistics and Research Decision Sciences, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc., North Wales, Pennsylvania, USA (2017 – present).

 [JOINT APPOINTMENTS] Visiting Member, Center for Innovative Study Design, Stanford University, 2017—present; Adjunct faculty, Department of Statistical Science, Temple University, 2017—present.

[FORMER POSITIONS] Sr. Global Group Head, Global Biostatistics and Pharmacometrics, Novartis (2015 – 2017); Senior Director, Head of Biometrics and Information Sciences, AstraZeneca Global Medicines Development China (2014 – 2015); Director/Senior Director, Head of Biostatistics and Statistical Programming, Merck Serono Beijing R&D Hub (2010 – 2014); Director of Statistics, Pharmacoepidemiology, Global Medical Services, Abbott Laboratories (2009 – 2010); Biometrician, Sr. Biometrician, Associate Director, Biostatistics and Research Decision Sciences, Merck Research Laboratories, Merck & Co., Inc., North Wales, Pennsylvania, USA.

[DEGREES] Ph.D. in Statistics, Temple University, 2003; M.P.H in Biostatistics, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 1994; and B.M., School of Public Health, Shanghai First College of Medicine (Now Fudan University School of Public Health), Shanghai, China, 1984.

[FIELD OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Biopharmaceutical Statistics, Clinical Trials, Medical Product Safety, Multiple Comparison and Multiple Testing, Sequential Analysis, Real-World Data and Evidence, Causal inference, Multi-Regional Clinical Trials, Benefit-Risk Assessment, Bayesian Analysis.

[ICSA ACTIVITIES] Board of Directors of ICSA, 2017—present; Award Committee of ICSA, 2018—present; Organizers of invited sessions at several ICSA Applied Statistics Symposia; Member of ICSA, 2008—present.

[HONORS AND AWARDS] Best Student Paper Award, Biopharmaceutical Section of the American Statistical Association, 2003; Graduate Research Fellowship, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, 1992—1994.

[EDITORIAL SERVICES] Co-Guest Editor, Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, 2010, 2013; Co-Guest Editor, Journal Biopharmaceutical Statistics, 2013; Co-Guest Editor, Biometrical Journal, 2007;

[PROFESSIONAL SERVICES] President, the International Society for Biopharmaceutical Statistics, 2008—present; Co-chair, Scientific Program Committee, the 6th International Symposium on Biopharmaceutical Statistics, Kyoto, Japan, 2019; Scientific Program Committee, CEN-ISBS Joint Symposium, 2017; Organizing Committee, UMBC-Stanford Workshop on Clinical Trials and Regulatory Sciences, 2016—2018; Organizing Committee, Stanford Center at Peking University (SCPKU) Workshop on Biomedical Innovation and Regulatory Sciences,  2017—2018; Executive Committee, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th International Symposia on Biopharmaceutical Statistics, 2008—2017; Steering Committee, ASA/Biopharmaceutical Section Regulatory-Industry Statistics Workshop, 2010; Management Committee, Current Index to Statistics, ASA, 2008—2010; Organizing Committee, The 5th International Conference on Multiple Comparison Procedures, 2009; Co-Organizer, the 4th International Conference on Multiple Comparison Procedures, 2005; Serving as referees for more than 10 statistics journals (e.g., The American Statistician, Biometrics, Communication in Statistics—Theory and Methods, Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, Journal of Infection and Public Health, Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, Statistics in Medicine, etc.) In addition, Jie has given short courses on statistical applications in medical product development and regulation at many statistical conferences including the ASA/Biopharmaceutical Section Regulatory-Industry Statistics Workshop (2010), EMA (European Medicines Agency) Statistics Workshop (2011), and JSM (2017).

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] Jie has published one co-authored book (one more forthcoming in 2020), one book chapter, and over 30 peer-reviewed research papers in a wide range of journals such as Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, Statistics in Medicine, Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics, Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, Encyclopedia of Biopharmaceutical Statistics, American Journal of Epidemiology, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Therapeutic Innovation and Regulatory Science, Drug Information Journal, Medical Safety and Global Health, Journal of Virological Methods. The co-authored book is entitled Medical Product Safety Evaluation—Biological Models and Statistical Methods (Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, 2018), and the forthcoming co-authored book Real-World Data and Evidence—An Interdisciplinary Approach and Applications to Precision Medicine and Healthcare (Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, 2020).

[STATEMENT] I feel very honored and grateful to be nominated by the ICSA Nomination and Election Committee as a candidate for the President of ICSA to which I am proud of being a member for more than a decade, serving its Board of Directors (2017—2019) and Award Committee (2018–present), and being engaged in its many other activities.

As a statistical methodologist working in the biopharmaceutical industry, I have always felt that being part of a coherent, educational, scholastic, and respectful organization is so critical for everyone’s professional life. ICSA, the home of ten of thousands of statisticians and quantitative scientists worldwide, is undoubtfully such a prestigious professional organization which, through the tireless effort of its leadership teams and, most importantly, the support from each and every one of its members, has grown stronger and more charismatic in a broad range of disciplines, especially in the era of big data and data science. The world changes constantly, so does our profession, which brings numerous challenges to our career that demand us to change the ways we used to think, to perform our job, to communicate with others, and to educate ourselves and our younger generations. “To change is difficult, not to change is fatal” [Charles Darwin, 1809—1882]. I have always been thinking of how we can live our professional life adaptively so that we can perform our job better day over day.

With my experience in biopharmaceutical industry and academic community, and in serving ICSA and other organizations, and my greatest passion to our profession, I would, if elected, continue the great effort led by the current leadership team and meanwhile strengthen and promote the following initiatives:

1. Strengthening Statistical innovation: Innovation is the driving force for science to advance. Statistical and analytic methodologies that we are using today in drug development and any other fields are much more advanced than the ones we used twenty years ago. Statistical innovations offer much more precise view into science, bringing faster and more accurate development path in virtually every applied fields, especially in the development of medical products for human use. Yet, the constant change of the world demand ceaseless innovations, an example of which is the call of innovative analytic approaches to deriving fit-for-purpose real-world evidence from real-world data for regulatory decision-making. Innovations are motivated by and then applied to solve real-life problems, which necessitates cross-sector (-subject) collaboration.
2. Encouraging Collaboration: Collaboration breeds efficiency and productivity, transforming subject knowledge into life-saving products, which demands seamless collaboration in research between statisticians and quantitative scientists across different sectors (e.g., academic, government, and industry), different geographical locations, and different disciplines. Collaboration also reflects at organizational level through partnership with other professional societies such as the American Statistical Association. A magnificent goal can only be achieved through collaboration.
3. Promoting excellence in communication and leadership: “The best thing about being a statistician is that you get to play in everyone’s backyard” [John W. Tukey, 1915—2000]. Statistics as an applied science has a place in every scientific discipline and statisticians work with scientists in every step toward solving scientific problems, which requires excellent communication skills. On the other hand, statisticians take critical leadership roles in many subject matters such as drug development and regulation. With these eminent needs, the organization can offer opportunities for our members to sharp up their communication and leadership skills.
4. Meeting our member’s needs: Our member’s needs are ultimate goals of the organization. The president and its leadership team can reach out to all of our members to ascertain what is important to our member’s career development, how ICSA can better serve our members, how ICSA can better be structured to lead in the changing world. Your voice will be heard!

In summary, I am so excited about the opportunity to support ICSA as president and to work together with its leadership team and our members for continued success of our organization.

Dr. Wu, Colin

[PRESENT POSITIONS] Mathematical Statistician, Office of Biostatistics Research, Division of Cardiovascular Sciences, National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health (NIH), Bethesda, Maryland (2002–present).

1. Part-Time Professor, Department of Statistics, The George Washington            University, Washington D.C. (2012–present).
2. Adjunct Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics, and Biomathematics, Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, Georgetown University School of Medicine, Washington D.C. (2013–present).

[FORMER POSITIONS] (1) 1/2010–5/2011, Guest Lecturer, Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. (2) 7/1998–1/2002, Associate Professor, Department of Mathematical Sciences, G.W.C. Whiting School of Engineering, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. (3) 7/1996–7/2002, Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, School of Hygiene and Public Health, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. (4) 6/1997–1/2002, Guest Researcher, Biometry and Mathematical Statistics Branch, Division of Epidemiology, Statistics and Prevention Research, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. (5) 9/1990–6/1991, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

[DEGREES] Ph.D. in Statistics, 9/1985–5/1990, Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley, CA; B.A. in Mathematics, 4/1982–5/1985, Department of Mathematics, University of California, Los Angeles, CA.

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Statistical analysis for repeated measurements and longitudinal data, statistical methods for clinical trials and observational studies, estimation and inferences in semiparametric and nonparametric models, biased sampling models, survival analysis, statistical modeling in genetic epidemiology, statistical applications in cardiovascular and blood diseases.

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] Book/Monograph: Wu C.O. and Tian X. (2018, “Nonparametric Models for Longitudinal Data: With Implementation in R.” Chapman & Hall/CRC, Monographs on Statistics & Applied Probability #159).

Journal articles (among over 160 publications): (1) Wu, C. O. and Tian, X. (2013). “Nonparametric estimation of conditional distributions and rank-tracking probabilities with time-varying transformation models in longitudinal studies”. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 108(503):971–82. (2) Wu C. O., Kwak M. and Zheng G. (2013). “A joint regression analysis for genetic association studies with outcome stratified samples”. Biometrics, 69(2):417–426. (3) Wu C. O., Tian X. and Jiang W. (2011). “A shared-parameter model for the estimation of longitudinal concomitant intervention effects”. Biostatistics, 12(4):737–49. (4)Wu C. O., Tian X. and Bang H. (2008). “A varying-coefficient model for the evaluation of time-varying concomitant intervention effects in longitudinal studies”. Statistics in Medicine, 2008; 27(16):3042–56. (5) Huang J., Wu C. O., and Zhou L. (2004). “Polynomial spline estimation and inference for varying-coefficient models with longitudinal data”. Statistica Sinica, 14, 763–788. (6) Huang J., Wu C. O., and Zhou L. (2002). “Varying-coefficient models and basis function approximations for the analysis of repeated measurements”. Biometrika, 89, 111–128. (7) Chiang C.-T., Rice J. A., and Wu C. O. (2001). “Smoothing splines estimation for varying coefficient models with longitudinal dependent variable”. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 96 605–619. (8) Rice J. A., and Wu C. O. (2001). “Nonparametric mixed effect models for unequally sampled noisy curves”. Biometrics, 57, 253–259. (9) Hoover D. R., Rice J., Wu C. O., and Yang L.-P. (1998). “Nonparametric smoothing estimates of time-varying coefficient models with longitudinal data”. Biometrika, 85, 809–822. (10) Wu C. O. (1995). “Estimating the real parameter in a two-sample proportional odds model”. Annals of Statistics, 23, 376–395.

[ICSA ACTIVITIES]: (1) Secretary, Biometrics Session (1997-2001); (2). Member, Nomination and Election Committee (2004-2005); (3) Member, Applied Statistics Symposium Committee (1996, 1999, 2005, 2009); (4) Member, Biometrics Section (2004).

[PROFESSIONAL COMMITTEES]: (1) ASA: (a) Member, Committee on International Relations in Statistics (2011-2013); (b) Chairman, Student Paper Award Committee, ASA Section on Nonparametric Statistics (2014-2015). (2) Department of Veterans Affairs (VA): Member (4/2011–Present), Data Monitoring Committee. (3) Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI, US): Member (7/2009–Present, independent statistical expert), Sphygmomanometer Committee.

[HONORS AND AWARDS]: Fellow of the American Statistical Association (2012); Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute (2008); National Institutes of Health Director’s Award (2015), Eltrombopag Clinical Research Team.

[STATEMENT] I am grateful to be nominated by the ICSA Nomination and Election Committee as a candidate for the next ICSA president. Benefited by the relentless efforts of all its members and volunteers, ICSA has grown from a relatively small organization in the late 1980’s to a highly reputable statistical society today with over 1000 active members, excellent annual conferences, and two high quality scientific journals: Statistica Sinica and Statistics in Biosciences. The strong leadership and guidance provided by all its past Presidents, Boards of Directors and members of various committees have greatly enhanced the reputation of ICSA as one of the leading statistical associations in the world.

My experience with ICSA: My first participation of ICSA activities was twenty three years ago, when I joined the Program Committee to help organizing the ICSA 1996 Applied Statistics Symposium at Baltimore, Maryland. Since then, I have served on the Biometrics Session, Nomination and Election Committee and the Program Committees of four Applied Statistics Symposiums. I have seen the number of participants in the ICSA Applied Statistics Symposiums grown from barely 200 in the 1990’s to about 600 today, and the ICSA International Conferences have become one of the most prestigious platforms in the world for statistical researchers and practitioners to exchange novel ideas and research results.

Why I accept the challenge of running for ICSA President: The professional activities of ICSA and its interactions with other statistical societies, such as ASA and IMS, have provided many valuable opportunities for collaboration, training and continuing education. As a result, many young ICSA members have become leading researchers in various fields of statistics. My own professional career as a statistical researcher has also been benefited immensely from the activities of ICSA, which include the opportunities for organizing and presenting in ICSA conferences, publishing in ICSA journals and, most important of all, meeting and collaborating with many talented ICSA members. I feel very fortunate to have ICSA as my professional home since the early years of my career, and am thankful for all the help I received from the friends I met at numerous events organized by ICSA. As a permanent member of ICSA, I would very much like to see ICSA to expand and flourish in the future, so that it can further benefit the next generation of statisticians. This task requires time, efforts and dedicated service from its devoted members. To me, it is an honor to have a chance to serve as its President, which would give me an opportunity to further improve the services of ICSA as a leading statistical hub in the world.

Plans and objectives if I am elected: I am committed to the ICSA mission, and will continue all the excellent activities, such as collaborating with other international statistical societies and reaching out to young statisticians, which have been set in motion by the past ICSA Presidents and Boards of Directors. In addition, I would like to strengthen the activities of ICSA in the following areas:

(1) Facing with the new challenges of the “Real World Data/Real World Evidence” (RWD/RWE) era, I would like to promote collaborations with profession societies outside the traditional areas of statistics, and expand the ICSA membership to professionals working on areas interfacing with statistics, such as epidemiology, information technology, system biology, bioinformatics, and other areas of data science. The ICSA conferences and journals can provide some natural platforms for collaborations between statisticians and researchers in these new frontiers of science.

(2)  I would like to promote further collaborations among statisticians in academia, industry and government. Although there are lots of collaborative activities among ICSA members, many of the available resources are still under-utilized. For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has many publicly available clinical and genetic datasets, which can be used for statistical collaboration with epidemiologists and geneticists. The ICSA conferences and journals can serve as natural platforms for publicizing the results of such collaborations.

(3) I would like to expand the global reach of ICSA, particularly strengthening the position of ICSA as the leading statistical society in Asia. This would include, for example, promote the membership drive and further improve the visibility of ICSA organized conferences in China.

(4) Realizing that one of the functions of ICSA is to promote its members, ICSA, given its excellent reputation, can play a more active role for potential employers to recruit both young and established statisticians. This may be particularly useful for overseas potential employers.

I am grateful for having this opportunity, and am ready to face the challenges and take the responsibilities for making ICSA a welcoming professional home for its members.

2. Candidates for 2020 Board of Directors

Dr. Chen, Yong

 [PRESENT POSITION] Yong Chen is Associate Professor of Biostatistics (with tenure) at The University of Pennsylvania (Penn). He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Biomedical Informatics at Penn, a Senior Scholar at the Center for Evidence-based Practice at Penn School of Medicine, and a faculty member at the Applied Mathematics & Computational Science Program, Penn Arts & Sciences.

[DEGREES] Dr. Chen received his Bachelor degree in Mathematics in 2003 at the University of Science and Technology of China, Master degree in Pure Mathematics in 2005, and Ph.D. In Biostatistics in 2010 at the Johns Hopkins University.

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Dr. Chen has been focusing on developing statistical and computational methods and open-source software for extracting, integrating and interpreting evidence from heterogeneous data, and advancing the theory of statistical inference, which is broadly applicable to many statistical models.

Dr. Chen has developed a general theory for statistical inference for situations with non-regular problems (boundary and non-identifiability problems) that arise in applications including correlated data, variance component models, multivariate survival models, and mixture models. He has used the theoretical framework to develop semiparametric tests for homogeneity in mixture models that are relevant to analysis of gene expression data, DNA methylation data, and genetic quantitative trait locus analyses, and pharmacovigilance studies. He has also made important contributions to multivariate meta-analysis, meta-analysis of diagnostic tests, network meta-analysis, and publication bias, as well as the related software. Owing to his significant contribution to innovative methodological development, dissemination, and applications on evidence synthesis, Dr. Chen was elected as a member of Society for Research Synthesis Methodology, which is a highly selective and prestigious society with limited to less than 85 members worldwide.

More recently, he has published numerous peer-reviewed papers on medical informatics journals, aiming to bridge the methodological gaps between novel statistical methods and practice in clinical informatics (such as analyses of electronic health records data and biobank data). In addition, over the last 9 years, he has taught more than 10 graduate level courses in statistical theory and biostatistics methods, and has successfully mentored/co-mentored six PhD students with half of them in academia and half in industry.

[PUBLICATIONS] Among Dr. Chen’s 90 peer-reviewed publications, more than 60 are methodological papers in statistical journals, including Biometrika, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Biometrics, Biostatistics, and Journal of the Royal Statistical Society – Series C.  Notably, Dr. Chen served as the first or senior author for 40 publications, and the second author for 10 publications.  Moreover, his effectiveness in promoting innovative collaborations has led to publications in medicine, biomedical informatics, bioinformatics, radiology, genetic epidemiology, and oncology, including Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, Nature Communication, Radiology, EMBO Molecular Medicine, and Neuro-Oncology.

[ICSA ACTIVITES] Dr. Chen has been a life-time member of ICSA.  He is on the Membership Committee for ICSA Applied Statistical Symposium.

[RELATED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES] Dr. Chen is an Associate Editor for the journal Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, and the journal International Journal of Biostatistics.  He served on national scientific review panels for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) and National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Chen, Yuguo

[PRESENT POSITION] Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Affiliated with Department of Computer Science, Information Trust Institute, Computational Science and Engineering, and Illinois Informatics Institute of UIUC.

[FORMER POSITION] Assistant Professor, Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences, Duke University (2001-2005).

[DEGREES] Ph.D in Statistics, Stanford University, 2001; and B.S. in Mathematics, University of Science and Technology of China, 1997.

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Network data analysis, Monte Carlo methods, Dynamic systems, Bioinformatics and genetics.

[PUBLICATIONS] He has published over sixty peer-reviewed research papers in journals, book chapters, and conference proceedings, including Annals of Statistics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, Statistics and Computing, Statistica Sinica, Bernoulli, Electronic Journal of Statistics, Bayesian Analysis, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series C, Statistics and Probability Letters, Discrete Mathematics, Bioinformatics, Biometrics, Genetics, Journal of Plant Pathology, BMC Genetics, Human Heredity. Psychometrika, IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Signal Processing, Water Resources Research, Structural Safety, Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery, Social Networks, and Statistics and Its Interface.

[ICSA ACTIVITIES] Organizer of invited sessions of ICSA Applied Symposium., Speaker at several ICSA meetings,  Life member of ICSA.

[HONORS AND AWARDS] Fellow of the American Statistical Association, 2018; Data Science Founder Professorial Scholar, 2019; Lists of Teachers Ranked as Excellent; ICSA Student Paper Award, 2001.

[RELATED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES] Associate Editor, Journal of American Statistical Association, 2014 – present; Associate Editor, Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics, 2007 – 2017; Editorial Board, Journal of Algebraic Statistics, 2009 – present. Member of Savage Award Committee, 2018; Scientific Programme Committee member for CMStatistics conference, 2019; Scientific Committee member of the Midwest Statistics Research Colloquium and Chair of the Poster Committee, 2013; Organizer of a workshop at Banff International Research Station, Canada, 2012.

[STATEMENT] I am honored to be nominated as a candidate for the ICSA Board of Directors. I joined ICSA when I was a graduate student and I have been a lifetime member of ICSA for many years. I have enjoyed and benefited from many activities organized by ICSA over the years. If elected, I will work with other members to 1) promote membership benefits and expand membership, 2) promote and support young professionals, and 3) promote the role of statistics in modern science and society.

Dr. Cheng, Yu

[PRESENT POSITION] Associate Professor of Statistics and Biostatistics, University of Pittsburgh.

[FORMER POSITION] Interim Chair (04/2017-08/2018) and Director of Graduate Studies (01/2016-03/2017), Department of Statistics, University of Pittsburgh; Assistant and Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry (joint appointment), University of Pittsburgh, 2006-2017.

[DEGREES] Ph.D in Statistics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2006; M.S. in Statistics, National University of Singapore, 2001; B.S. in Statistics, University of Science and Technology of China, 1999.

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Her current methodological research focuses on biomarker evaluation and risk screening, developing and finding optimal dynamic treatment strategies, association and regression analyses of competing risks data, quantile association and neuroimaging. Prior research experiences include classification, discriminant analysis, and adaptive design. Meanwhile, she has served as co-investigator on various clinical trials ranging from eating disorders and weight loss to sleep problems, from systemic lupus erythematosus to smoking cession, from depression to behavioral intervention, and from AIDS to Alzheimer’s disease.

[PUBLICATIONS] She has worked on a broad range of topics especially in the fields of competing risks, association analysis and mental health applications. To date, she has published over 70 papers, including top statistical journals such as JASA, Biometrika, JRSSB and Biometrics, and leading scientific journals in the application fields.

[ICSA ACTIVITES] ICSA member 2007-present; ICSA poster session committee, 2015; Organizer of the session at ICSA Symposium, 2015; Invited speaker at various meetings that the ICSA organized.

[RELATED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES] President elect, President and past President, ASA Pittsburgh Chapter, 2013-2016; Organizer of a team of judges for special awards for the use of Statistics at the 2015 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair; Organizer of invited sessions at scientific conferences; Associate Editor, Journal of Statistical Research, 2015-present; ASA Biopharmaceutical Section FDA-Industry Statistics Workshop, Steering Committee, 2014-2017; Reviewer for NSA-AMS scientific program 2015 and Research Grants Council of Hong Kong 2017-2019; Panelist for NIMH review panel 2018; Tenure promotion reviewer for faculty elsewhere 2017-2019; Co-chair of local organizing committee, ASA LiDS conference 2019.

[STATEMENT] I am very honored to be nominated as a candidate for a member of the ICSA Board of Directors.  Over the years, I have always enjoyed participating in symposiums and many other activities that the ICSA organized. I am much excited about the prospect of joining the Board and helping organize activities that others will enjoy as well.

Dr. Diao, Guoqing

[PRESENT POSITION] Associate Professor, Department of Statistics, George Mason University (August 2012 – present).

[FORMER POSITION] Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, George Mason University (August 2006 – August 2012); Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (January 2006 – July 2006).

[DEGREES] Ph.D. in Biostatistics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, December 2005; M.S. in Probability and Statistics, July 2001; B.E. in Engineering and Information Science, University of Science and Technology of China, July 1998.

[FIELD OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Dr. Diao’s research focuses on the development of new statistical methodologies and novel computational tools for solving important scientific problems arising in biomedical studies. More specifically, his research areas include semiparametric models, survival analysis, statistical genetics, longitudinal data analysis, diagnostic medicine, high-dimensional data analysis, and clinical trials designs. He is also interested in the area of computational probability, particularly the rare event simulation problem with applications to health economics. His applied work includes disability, rehabilitation, and policing and criminology.

[ICSA ACTIVITIES] Chair of the Organization Committee, ICSA 2021 Applied Statistics Symposium, Arlington, VA; Member of Program Committee, ICSA, 2018–2020; Organizer of the invited session “Advances in Ultra High Dimensional Data Analysis”, 2016 ICSA Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA; Local Committee Chair, 2013 ICSA & ISBS Joint Statistical Conference, Bethesda, MD; Associate Editor for Statistics in Biosciences, 2017 – present; Life Member of ICSA, 2008 – present.

[HONORS AND AWARDS] ENAR Junior Researcher Workshop, 2009; Travel Award, IMS Young Researcher Conference, 2008; Barry H. Margolin Dissertation Award, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2006; Graduate School Transportation Grant, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2005; Distinguished Student Paper Award, ENAR 2004.

[EDITORIAL SERVICES] Associate Editor, Statistics in Biosciences, 2017 – present.

[PROFESSIONAL SERVICES] Chair of Student Paper and Poster Award Committee, 2019 Lifetime Data Science Conference, Pittsburgh, PA; Organizer of the invited session “Advances in the Analysis of Composite Endpoints subject to Component-wise Censoring”, 2019 Lifetime Data Science Conference, Pittsburgh, PA; ASA Lifetime Data Science Section Representative, 2019 JSM Program Committee; Program Chair, ASA Lifetime Data Science Section, 01/2019–12/2019; Program Chair-Elect, ASA Lifetime Data Science Section, 01/2018–12/2018; Member of Student Paper Award Committee, 2017 Conference on Lifetime Data Science, University of Connecticut; Co-Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee, 2008 ENAR Annual Meeting, Crystal City, VA

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] Dr. Diao has published nearly 50 peer-reviewed research articles including publications in statistical journals such as Biometrika, Biometrics, Annals of Applied Probability, Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Lifetime Data Analysis, Statistics in Medicine, and Entropy. His methodological work has also appeared in top tier genetic journals including the American Journal of Human Genetics, Genetic Epidemiology, and Genetics. He is the leading/corresponding author in 27 of his methodology papers. His long-term collaboration with investigators in the area of disability and rehabilitation has also led to numerous journal publications in the field.

[STATEMENT] I am deeply honored and grateful to be nominated by the ICSA Nomination and Election Committee as a candidate for a member of the Board of Directors. It will be my privilege to serve ICSA. Since I became a life member of ICSA more than ten years ago, I have been actively engaged in various ICSA activities, including presenting, chairing, and organizing invited sessions at ICSA conferences. I have served as the local committee chair for the ICSA 2013 conference and will chair the Organization Committee of the ICSA 2021 Applied Statistics Symposium, to be held in Arlington, VA. If elected, I pledge to support and promote ICSA. I will also work with the ICSA Executive Board and other members to initiate new efforts to support young professionals particularly graduate students and promote their careers.

Dr. Liao, Jason

[PRESENT POSITION]  Sr. Principal Statistician leading the Multiple-Myeloma indication and Merck-AstraZeneca joint lung program, Merck & Co, Inc., North Wales, PA 19454, USA

[DEGREES] Ph.D. in Statistics from the Department of Statistics, The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA; MS in Applied Mathematics, Tsinghua University, PR China; and BS in Mathematics, Jiangxi Normal University, PR China

[FIELD OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Since receiving his Ph.D. in Statistics from The University of Michigan, Dr. Jason Liao has worked in the pharmaceutical industry with increasing responsibilities.  He has a unique combination of knowledge and experience in all stages of drug development for chemical drugs, biologics, vaccines and biosimilars/follow-on biologics across multiple therapeutic areas that enable him to see end-to-end key items/issues. He has been actively practicing and promoting appropriate and/or more powerful statistical tools to enhance solutions and solve practical issues in drug development.

[ICSA ACTIVITIES] Dr. Liao is a lifetime member of ICSA and actively contributes and participates ICSA activities. He has organized numerous invited sessions, presented and chaired many times at ICSA sponsored symposiums.  He chaired the fundraising committee for 2018 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium. He was the program committee member for ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium in 2016 and 2018. He organized a special pharmaceutical panel session entitled “Future of Statisticians in the pharmaceutical world—A panel discussion with Leaders” in 2018 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium. He was also a member of the fundraising committee for 2016 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium.

[HONORS AND AWARDS]  Drive Results Award in 2018 and 2019; Special Achievement Award in 2017; Passion-Quality-Speed (PQS) award in 2014;  Elected executive board member for Merck Asian Pacific Network, 2007 – 2009;  Merck Asian Pacific Network “Above and Beyond” award in 2008; Award of Excellence in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007

[EDITORIAL SERVICES] Dr. Liao has served as a reviewer for over 20 different statistical and scientific journals, including Biometrics, Computational Statistics, J. of Biopharmaceutical Statistics, J. of Statistical Computation and Simulation, J. of Statistical Planning & Inference, Pharmaceutical Statistics, Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, Statistics in Medicine, Statistica Sinica.

[PROFESSIONAL SERVICES] Dr. Liao has severed as a reviewer for numerous scientific journals, statistical journals, and ICSA book chapters. Dr. Jason Liao was an adjunct professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Drexel University in 2007-2010. He also gave many presentations in local universities and the universities in China, and numerous professional meetings. He taught many short courses in scientific workshops such as the Barnett International Dissolution, Bioequivalence & Bioavailability workshop, and the Chromatography Validation & Method Development workshop. He was the core-member of many industry working groups such as the non-proportional hazard analysis working group, and the Biosimilars Statistics Working Group. He was also a member of the non-clinical statistics leadership team in 2007-2012. Dr. Liao served as the judge for DataFest Philly for the American Statistical Association Philadelphia Chapter, Villanova University, 2018; served as the statistical judge for Special Awards for the American Statistical Association Philadelphia Chapter in Delaware Valley Science Fairs (DVSF), 2018; and served as the member of Organizing Committee, ASA Biopharmaceutical Section FDA-Industry Statistics Workshop, 2010 and 2011.

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] Dr. Liao has published four book chapters and over 40 peer-reviewed statistical papers. Dr. Liao has made significant contributions in assay development, concordance assessment, and comparative studies. One of his assay methods was incorporated in a commercial software for routine assay development. One of his concordance methods was considered by scientists as the first statistical procedure to use when there is no “golden” reference. His series papers on biosimilar development set up foundation on statistical evaluations on developing biosimilars.

[STATEMENT] I am deeply honored to be nominated for a member of the Board of Directors, the International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA). ICSA is one of the largest and most active statistical societies and is an outstanding organization with strong statistics impacts. I am a lifetime member of ICSA and actively contributes and participates ICSA activities including organizing numerous invited sessions, presenting and chairing many times at ICSA sponsored symposiums.  Recently, I chaired the fundraising committee for 2018 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium and served as the program committee member for ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium in 2016 and 2018. This particular role on the Board of Directors will further solidify and strengthen my service to ICSA. By working closely with the ICSA Leadership team, I look forward to continuously supporting ICSA and making bigger contributions in strengthening the interactions for a win-win among statisticians in industry, academia, and government, specifically for practicing and promoting appropriate and/or more powerful statistical tools to enhance solutions and solve practical issues in drug development.

Dr. Liu, Rong

[PRESENT POSITION] Director of Biostatistics Hematology and Oncology, Celgene Co. (2018-Present).

[FORMER POSITION] Deputy Director of Statistics, Bayer Co. (2014-2018); Principle Statistician, Merck Co. (2006-2014).

[DEGREES] PhD in Biostatistics, Virginia Commonwealth University (2006); M.A. in Statistics, University of Virginia (2003)

[FIELD OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Complex innovative study design for immune-oncology trials, Basket and/or platform trial designs, Combination therapy designs, Historical data, Real world evidence.

[ICSA ACTIVITIES] Actively and consistently organizing invited Sessions, giving topic contributed and Invited talks (2007-2019).  ICSA & Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM)

[HONORS AND AWARDS] Bayer Applause Awards (2015-2018), Merck Special Achievement Award (2014), MRL Excellence Award (2006-2013), Wyeth Consumer Healthcare Fellow (2014-2005), GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals R&D Scholar Award (2003), Karl E. Peace Biostatistics Award for Excellence and Scholarship (2004-2005).

[PROFESSIONAL SERVICES] Frequently organized and chaired sessions for JSM and ENAR annual meetings, ASA Biopharmaceutical Section Regulatory-Industry Statistics Workshops. Reviewer of Contemporary Clinical Trials. Active member of ASA Oncology Working Group, Cross-Pharma Non- Proportional Hazard working group.

[STATEMENT] I am greatly honored to be nominated for the Board of Directors. I joined the ICSA as a young statistician fresh out of graduate school and started to get involved right away. I witnessed the rapid growth of ICSA to one of largest and leading statistical societies due to its strong leadership as well as its wide and diverse members. I have been actively and consistently engaged in the various ICSA conferences over the years as topic contributed speaker, invited session organizer, invited Speaker since 2007. In addition, I have also been active interacting with members informally and am looking for opportunities to serve the ICSA community.  I believe that being on Board of Directors will further solidify my service to the ICSA to meet the challenges in the new era and big tent of statistics. If elected, I would like to strive for the following:

1. Adapt to challenges in the new era. This includes a) attention to soft skills, which become invaluable in professional settings where we are posed to lead. Statisticians often work in team setting and it is critical to works as the wise adviser with strong critical thinking skills.  I would promote related programs in the role of critical thinking, leadership, and communications and b) embrace the vision of big tent of statistics, encourage closely bridging and collaboration of real-world data/evidence, machine learning and statistics and provide opportunities to foster the next generation quantitative experts.
2. Continue to expand impact and visibility of the ICSA. Leverage current ICSA network to reach out graduate students and young professionals to bring new blood to the association and expand the existing international communities, especially in the Asian Pacific and European countries.

Overall, the ICSA has been my primary professional home and an integral part of my career development. For this, I am thrilled to have the opportunity to give back to the association by being nominated to serve on Board of Directors and I sincerely thank you for your support!

Dr. Long, Qi

[PRESENT POSITION] Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics; Director, Biostatistics Core, Abramson Cancer Center, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.

• Associate Professor (2011-2016), Director of Research (2015-2016), and Rollins Assistant Professor (2005-2011), Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, Emory University.
  • Ph.D. (2005) and M.S. (2003) in Biostatistics, University of Michigan; B.S. in Biochemistry (1998), University of Science and Technology of China.

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] The thrust of his research is to develop statistical and machine learning, bioinformatics, and data mining methods for advancing precision medicine and population health with keen interests in the use of big biomedical data including, but not limited to, -omics data, electronic health records (EHRs) data, and mobile health (mHealth) data. He has developed methods for analysis of big biomedical data (-omics, EHRs, and mHealth data), predictive modeling, missing data, causal inference, Bayesian methods and clinical trials. He has collaborated extensive in biomedical research areas such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, mental health and stroke.

• He has more than 100 peer-reviewed publications including papers with him as the first or corresponding author in Journal of the American Statistical Association, Statistica Sinica, Biometrics, Annals of Applied Statistics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Bioinformatics, Cancer Research, American Journal of Pathology, and Journal of Psychiatric Research etc.

[ICSA ACTIVITES AND OFFICE HELD] Program Committee Member, ICSA International Conference (2019); Program Committee Member, ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium (2010 and 2016); Invited Session Organizer/Chair/Speaker, ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium/ICSA International Conference/other ICSA sponsored conference (2010-present); Reviewer, ICSA-Sponsored Journals such as Statistica Sinica; Permanent Member of ICSA (2007-present).

• Senior Editor, Cancer Research (2018-present); Associate Editor, Biometrics (2014-present); Associate Editor, Statistical Analysis and Data Mining (2018-present); Associate Editor, BMC Medical Research Methodology (2012-2019); Editorial Board Member, Journal of the American Heart Association (2012-2017) and Scientific Reports (2016-2019).

[OTHER PROFESSIONAL SERVICES] Member, Regional Committee (Board of Directors), International Biometric Society/Eastern North American Region (ENAR) (2017-2019); Member, Regional Advisory Board, International Biometric Society/Eastern North American Region (ENAR) (2014-2016); Member, Scientific Advisory Committee, National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, China, (2019-present); Member, Steering Committee, the Georgia Coverdell Acute Stroke Registry (2013-2016); Vice President, Georgia Chapter, American Statistical Association (2014-2016); Program Co-Chair, 2017 Southern Regional Council on Statistics (SRCOS) Summer Research Conference; Program Co-Chair, 2014 International Biometric Society/Eastern North American Region Spring Meeting; Lead Member, Statistical Methodology Group, International Consortium on Genetics of Subsequent Coronary Heart Disease (2015-present); Member, Designing and Analyzing Clinical Trials for Personalized Medicine Working Group, NIH Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program (2015-2017); Standing Member, Biostatistical Methods and Research Design Study Section (BMRD), NIH (2017-2021); Grant Reviewer, NIH and Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs in US Department of Defense, (2014-present); Member, Student Paper Competition Committee for multiple ASA sections (2013-2016); Instructor, Short Course on Propensity Score Methods for Observational Studies, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2017); Organizer and Instructor, Workshop Series on Handling Missing Data, US Georgia Department of Public Health (2015-2016); Mentor in Statistics and Methodology, American Psychiatric Association (APA) Research Colloquium for Junior Investigators (2016).

Dr. Luo, Xiaodong

[PRESENT POSITION] Director, Statistical Sciences and Modeling, Sanofi USA, Bridgewater, NJ, USA.

[FORMER POSITION] Associate Director (2016-2018), Statistical Sciences and Modeling, Sanofi USA, Bridgewater, NJ, USA; Director for Data Management and Statistics Core (2010-2015), Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA; Assistant Professor (2006-2015), Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.

[DEGREES] Ph.D. in Biostatistics, Columbia University, 2006; M.Phil. in Biostatistics, Columbia University, 2004; B.S. in Statistics, Renmin University of China, 2000.

[FILED OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Thirteen years of experience in academia and industry, with research and applications in areas including oncology, Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular diseases, immunology, psychiatric disorders, epidemiology and design and analysis of clinical trials. Dr. Luo’s statistical methodology research includes survival analysis, missing data handling, longitudinal data analysis, analysis of biased sampling data, adaptive design and analysis of composite endpoints.

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] Dr. Luo has published over 30 statistical methodology and statistical application papers in peer-reviewed journals including Biometrika, JASA, Biometrics, Statistics in Medicine, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, Contemporary Clinical Trials, Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research and various medical journals.

[ICSA ACTIVITES] Dr. Luo was a member of the Organizing Committee and Chair of the Registration Committee for the 2018 ICSA Joint Applied Statistics Symposium.  Dr. Luo has served as session organizer, speaker and discussant in multiple ICSA conferences.

[RELATED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIE] Dr. Luo has served as a referee for peer-reviewed statistical journals such as JASA, Biometrika, Biometrics, Biostatistics, Lifetime Data Analysis, Statistical Science, Statistics in Medicine, Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics, Contemporary Clinical Trials, Statistica Sinica, Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Pharmaceutical Statistics, TEST, Communications in Statistics, Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Research, Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Statistical Papers. Dr. Luo also served a statistical reviewer for medical journals such as Stroke and Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

[STATEMENT] I am very honored to be nominated by the ICSA Nomination and Election Committee as a candidate for a member of the Board of Directors.

Over the years, I have participated and enjoyed many ICSA activities. In return, I believe this is the time for me to serve for the members of ICSA. If elected, I will be in a better position to help the association to make decisions to better serve our members in their respective fields. The experiences from both academia and industry put me in a unique position to listen to the voices from both worlds, which are sometimes disconnected.

I believe most (if not all) of the important and difficult statistical problems come from applications. One of the most important areas is clinical trials. The field statisticians are often able to identify problems and issues but oftentimes only have time and resource to provide temporary or limited solutions. The statisticians at universities sometimes have to deal with difficult theoretical problems of limited protical use. Having large bodies of members from both worlds in ICSA, we need to provide a more viable bridge to connect them. This effort will benefit both groups. If elected, I will work hard to establish and strengthen the connection.  Dear fellow ICSA members, your support and undertanading to make this goal as a reality through my service on the ICSA Board of Directors will be well-appreciated.

Dr. Nan, Bin  

[PRESENT POSITION] Full Professor, Department of Statistics, University of California, Irvine  (2017 – present).

[FORMER POSITION] Assistant Professor (2001-2007), Associate Professor (2007-2011), Full Professor (2011-2017), Department of Biostatistics, University of Michigan; Full Professor (2014-2017), Department of Statistics, University of Michigan.

[DEGREES] Ph.D in Biotatistics, University of Washington, 2001; M.S. in Biostatistics, University of Washington, 1999; M.S. in Mathematics, Virginia Commonwealth University, 1997; M.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1987; B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1984.

[FIELD OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] semiparametric inference, survival analysis, longitudinal data, missing data, high-dimensional statistics, imaging data analysis, and genomics

[ICSA ACTIVITIES] Member, Program Committee, 11th ICSA International Conference, 2019. Hangzhou, China; Program Chair, ICSA JSM 2012; Member, Program Committee, ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium, 2010. Indianapolis, Indiana; Organizers of Invited Sessions of Several ICSA Meetings; Life Member of ICSA.

[HONORS AND AWARDS] Fellow of the American Statistical Association; Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics; Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute.

[EDITORIAL SERVICES] Associate Editor, JASA, Application and Case Studies, 2019 –  present; Associate Editor, LIDA, 2015 – present; Associate Editor, Statistica Sinica, 2011 – 2014;  Associate Editor, Canadian Journal of Statistics, 2010 – 2017; Associate Editor, Statistics in Biosciences, 2009 – present; Guest Editor, LIDA, 2015.

[PROFESSIONAL SERVICES] Served on NIH Study Panels (BMRD, CHSA) multiple times; JSM Program Chair for ICSA, ENAR, and LIDA Interest Group; Served on and chaired several Program Committees for numerous conferences; Organized numerous invited sessions for conferences; Served on the Data Safety and Monitoring Boards for NIH sponsored clinical trials.

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] Dr. Nan has published over 120 research papers in the Annals of Statistics, Biometrika, Biometrics, Canadian Journal of Statistics, JASA, LIDA, Statistica Sinica, and other statistical and scientific journals. A substantial proportion of his more recent publications has focused on high-dimensional data analysis with applications in brain imaging and genomics; the development of new methods in the areas of survival  analysis; analysis of longitudinal data with change-points, terminal events, and variables subject to limit of detection. He is interested in all statistical problems arising from his collaboration in biomedical research and other scientific fields.

[STATEMENT] It is a great honor to be nominated. I very much look forward to the opportunity to serve the ICSA members via supporting ICSA activities and initiatives so to make greater impacts to our society and beyond.

Dr. Qiu, Peihua

[PRESENT POSITION] Peihua Qiu is Professor and Founding Chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Florida (UF). He is also the director of the Biostatistics and Epidemiology Research Design (BERD) program of the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the director of the Biostatistics Core of the UF Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center.

[DEGREES] Ph.D. (1996) in Statistics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison; MS (1993) in Statistics from the University of Georgia; MS (1989) in Statistics and B.S. (1986) in Mathematics from the Fudan University.

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] His research interests include nonparametric regression analysis, especially in cases when the underlying regression function has jumps or other singularities; edge detection, image segmentation, image denoising, image deblurring, image registration, image comparison and monitoring, and other image processing problems; statistical process control with applications to dynamic disease screening, spatio-temporal disease surveillance, and production line monitoring in manufacturing industries; survival analysis, especially in cases with crossing hazard curves.

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] He has published two books and over 120 peer-reviewed research papers in statistical, biostatistical, computer science, and industrial engineering journals and book chapters, including publications in Journal of the American Statistical Association, Annals of Statistics, Journal of the Royal Statistical Societies (Series B), Biometrika, Biometrics, Technometrics, Annals of Applied Statistics, IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, IISE Transactions, Journal of Quality Technology, Annals of Internal Medicine, and many more. Books: Qiu, P. (2005), Image Processing and Jump Regression Analysis, New York: John Wiley & Sons (Inaugural Ziegel prize winner); Qiu, P. (2014), Introduction to Statistical Process Control, Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall/CRC. Selected papers: Qiu, P. (1998), “Discontinuous regression surfaces fitting,” Annals of Statistics, 26, 2218-2245; Qiu, P., and Sheng, J. (2008), “A two-stage procedure for comparing hazard rate functions,” JRSS-B, 70, 191-208; Qiu, P., and Mukherjee, P.S. (2012), “Edge structure preserving 3-D image denoising by local surface approximation,” IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 34, 1457-1468; Qiu, P., Zi, X., and Zou, C. (2018), “Nonparametric dynamic curve monitoring,” Technometrics, 60, 386-397.

[HONORS AND AWARDS] University Term Professor, 2018, University of Florida (UF); The paper Qiu et al. (2010, Technometrics) was honored by the 60th anniversary virtual issue of Technometrics, as one of the classic articles published in the journal during the past 60 years, 2018; Plenary Speaker (90-minute presentation followed by 90-minute discussions), 2017 Stu Hunter Research Conference at Copenhagen, Denmark; Dean’s Citation Paper Award, 2016, College of Public Health and Health Professions, UF; Dean’s Citation Paper Award, 2015, College of Public Health and Health Professions, UF; Plenary speaker, Annual Meeting of the German Statistical Society, 2010, Nuremberg, Germany; Elected Fellow, 2010, Institute of Mathematical Statistics; Elected Fellow, 2009, American Statistical Association; Elected member, 2009, International Statistical Institute; Inaugural Ziegel prize winner, 2007, for his book titled Image Processing and Jump Regression Analysis; UAP Mathematical Award, 1990, Fudan University.

[EDITORIAL SERVICES] Editorial Board Member, Quality Engineering, 2019-present; Editorial Board Member, Surgery, 2016-2018; Editor-elect, 2013, editor, 2014-2016, Technometrics; Associate Editor, Journal of the American Statistical Association – Applications and Case Studies, 2006-2012; Associate Editor, Technometrics, 2007-2012; Associate Editor, Biometrics, 2011-2012; Associate Editor, Statistical Papers, 2011-2012; Guest Co-Editor, Multimedia Tools and Applications, 2011, Special Issue on New Trends in Multimedia Processing, Vol. 52, Issue 1; Guest Co-Editor, Quality and Reliability Engineering International, 2015, Special Issue on Nonparametric Statistical Process Control, Vol. 31, Issue 1.

[ICSA ACTIVITES AND OFFICE HELD] He has been a member and then a permanent member of ICSA for over twenty years, and actively participated many ICSA conferences as session speakers, chairs, and organizers. Program committee member of the 10th ICSA international conference in 2016 at Shanghai.

[RELATED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES] American Statistical Association: Committee on Publications (2013 – 2016), Caucus of Academic Representatives (2014 – 2017), Chair of the Technometrics Management Committee (2019-2022); American Society for Quality: Journal Editor Committee (2013 – 2016); Institute of Mathematical Statistics: Chair of the Local Committee for the 2015 Joint Summer Meeting at Minneapolis, Committee on Nominations (2011); Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS): Advisory Board Member for the INFORMS QSR Section (2017 – 2020); Regular review panels or proposal reviewer for NIH, NSF, NSA, National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and Research Grant Council of Hong Kong; Program Chair/Co-Chair of three conferences/workshops in China; Program committee member of 13 conferences in different countries; Organizers of over 50 invited sessions for statistical conferences; Referee for over 75 academic journals; Regular outside reviewer for faculty tenure and promotion cases.

[STATEMENT] I am greatly honored to be a candidate for a member of the ICSA Board of Directors. Throughout my academic career, I have been fortunate to have opportunities to serve our statistical communities within my personal capacity, as journal associate editor and editor, conference and session organizer, and department founding chair. If elected, I will work closely with the ICSA leadership and other members of the ICSA Board of Directors, listen to ICSA members regarding their real needs from ICSA, and make my contributions to the new and ongoing ICSA services and activities that can meet such needs of its members.

Dr. Wang, Xiaofeng

[PRESENT POSITION] Full Staff Member of Biostatistics, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Cleveland Clinic,  2016 – present; Professor of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, 2017 – present.

[FORMER POSITION] Associate Staff Member of Biostatistics, Department of Quantitative Health Sciences, Cleveland Clinic,  2011 – 2015; Associate Professor of Medicine, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University, 2013 – 2016; Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Secondary appointment), Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Case Western Reserve University, 2013 – 2016.

[DEGREES] Ph.D in Statistics, Case Western Reserve University (2005); M.S. in Applied Mathematics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (1999).

[FIELD OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Clinical Machine Learning Models; Healthcare Big Data Analytics; Bayesian Inference with Gaussian Markov Random Field Models; Measurement Error Models; Quantitative Image Data Analysis; and Bioinformatics.

[ICSA ACTIVITIES] Dr. Wang has organized and chaired multiple invited sessions and has presented a number of times at ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium. Organizer and Chair for Invited Session “Statistics in Nanoscience and Imaging”: ICSA 2009 Applied Statistics Symposium; San Francisco, California, 2009; Program Committee, International Workshop on Emerging Issues and Challenges to Statistics, Xiamen, China, co-sponsored by ICSA and IMS, 2010.

[HONORS AND AWARDS] 2015 Society of Critical Care Medicine Annual Scientific Award (Joint with Drs. Keller, Reed, Guzman); 2015 American Thoracic Society Abstract Award (Joint with Drs. Panchabhai, Pioro, Mireles- Cabodevila, and  Aboussouan); Highlight Paper Award, 2011 Orthopaedic Trauma Association Annual Meeting (Joint with Drs. Vallier, Moore, Wilber, and Como.); Cleveland Clinic Innovator Award, 2010; Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute, 2006; Researcher Selected for the 2006–7 The Value of Research, Case Western Reserve University; LAHA Travel Award, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 2005; Successfully won about 30 federal and non-federal research grants (including 11 NIH R01s) in a variety of medical fields.

[EDITORIAL SERVICES] Editorial Board Member, Statistical Methods in Medical Research, 2015 – present; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Medical Artificial Intelligence, 2018 – present; Guest Associate Editor, Stataistica Sinica, 2013; Academic Editor, PLoS ONE, 2012 – present; Editorial Board Member, Journal of Biometrics and Biostatistics, 2012 – 2016; Editorial/Review board member for Proceedings of the 4th Ohio Collaborative Conference on Biomedical Informatics, IEEE Press, 2009; Editorial Assistant for IMS Lecture Notes – Monograph Series: Recent Developments in Nonparametric Inference and Probability, 2006.

[PROFESSIONAL SERVICES] External Grant Reviewer: Johns Hopkins University Older Americans Independence Center, 2015; Study Section Review Panel: Department of Defense (DoD) Clinical and Rehabilitative Medicine Research Program,  2014; Review Panel: NIH/VA/DoD Consortium to Alleviate Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), 2014; Grant Reviewer:  National Security Agency (NSA), Mathematical Sciences Program, 2012; Grant Reviewer:  National Science Foundation (NSF), Cognitive Neuroscience Program, 2010; Member of the Algorithm Comparison Group, Quantitative Imaging Biomarker Alliance (QIBA), Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), 2012 – 2014; Chair for Session “Recent Development of Statistical Methods in Radiological Research”, Joint Statistical Meeting; Montréal, Canada, 2013; Program Committee, Ohio Collaborative Conference on Bioinformatics, at Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 2010; Program Committee and Poster Session Chair, Ohio Collaborative Conference on Bioinformatics, Cleveland OH, 2009; Organizer and Chair for Session “Nonparametric and Semiparametric Methods for Data with Measurement Errors”, Joint Statistical Meeting; Salt Lake City, Utah, July, 2007. Dr. Wang is a regular reviewer for more than 20 leading statistical and bioinformatics journals.

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] Dr. Wang has published one book and over 110 peer-reviewed articles in leading medical journals and statistical journals. His recently statistical book is in the field of Bayesian Inference with Gaussian Markov Random Field Models (Wang, X.F., Yue, Y.R., and Faraway, J. 2018. Bayesian Regression Modeling and Fast Computation: With Application using R-INLA. Chapman & Hall/CRC Computer Science and Data Analysis Series.) A substantial proportion of his more recent publications has mainly focused on clinical machine learning models. With integrating a lot of medical data coming from various sources, medical decisions can be made from the insights gained through big data by using ensemble machine learning algorithms. Dr. Wang is attracted to pursue clinical big data translational research, especially the development of machine learning prediction tools for medical decision making and clinical practice.

[STATEMENT] I am deeply honored to be nominated as a candidate for a member of the Board of Directors for ICSA. I have been actively engaged in a variety of ICSA conferences over the years. It would be a great honor to continue serving ICSA in this new role. We face exciting new opportunities addressing topics such as Big Data and Healthcare Analytics. We embark on a road to improve communications with other disciplines and majors. As a representative of biostatisticians in medical centers and hospitals, I look forward to promoting the collaboration between other clinical societies and ICSA, blending data science and traditional statistics in healthcare areas, supporting ICSA members to take a leading role in healthcare big data analytics.

My career thus far has been as a biostatistician and professor of a medical center in a non-traditional setting where I have developed and enhanced our research infrastructure toward building a successful collaborative program. I believe my experiences and unique perspective give me the ability to effectively communicate with the ICSA leadership and the Board of Directors regarding issues important to the society.

Dr. Yin, Xiangrong

[PRESENT POSITION] Xiangrong Yin is a Professor of Statistics at the University of Kentucky.

[DEGREES] He earned a B.S. and a M. S. degrees in Mathematic from Hangzhou University in 1986 and 1993 and a M.S. and a Ph.D. degrees in Statistics from the University of Minnesota in 1998 and 2000.

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] His research interests include dimension reduction, variable selection, and multivariate analysis.

[SELECTED PUBLICATIONS] Chen, X., Sheng, W. and Yin, X. (2018). Efficient Sparse Estimate of Sufficient Dimension Reduction in High Dimension. Technometrics, 60, 161-168.

Yin, X. and Hilafu, H. (2015). Sequential Sufficient Dimension Reduction for Large p Small n Problem. Journal of Royal Statistical Society, Series B, 77, 879-892. Yin, X. and Li, B. (2011). Sufficient dimension reduction based on an ensemble of minimum average variance estimators. Annals of Statistics, 39 (6), 3392-3416. Iaci, R. Yin, X. Sriram, T. N. and Klingenberg, C. P. (2008). An informational measure of association and dimension reduction for multiple sets and groups with applications in morphometrics analysis. Journal of American Statistical Association, 103, 1166-1176. Yin, X., Li, B. and Cook, R. D. (2008). Successive direction extraction for estimating the central subspace in a Multiple-index regression. Journal of Multivariate Analysis, 99, 1733–1757. Yin, X. and Cook, R. D. (2005). Direction estimation in single-index regressions.  Biometrika, 92, 371–384. Yin, X. and Cook, R. D. (2002). Dimension Reduction for the Conditional k-th Moment in Regression.  Journal Royal Statistical Society B, 64, Part 2, 159–175.

[HONORS AND AWARDS]  He was awarded The Inaugural Editor’s Award for the best article published in the ANZJS in 2001 (With his adviser: R. D. Cook). He was awarded as a coauthor/adviser for The Journal of Nonparametric Statistics Best Student Paper Prize 2015 (with his student: Yuan Xue);

[ICSA ACTIVITES AND OFFICE HELD] He has been an ICSA member since 2000. He served as an associated editor for Statistica Sinica from 2014-2017. He has organized/chaired many invited sessions for ICSA local chapter conference, conference, symposium and international conference and given various invited talks at these meetings.

[RELATED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES] He has organized or chaired invited and topic contributed sessions for several statistical conferences, including IMS, IISA, KISS, and ASA. He has served as an Associate Editor for the journal Statistics and Probability Letters (2010-2014) and for Journal of Nonparametric Statistics since 2010. He reviewed 15 promotion and tenure cases nationally and internationally, and 6 book/book proposal for publishers. And reviewed over 120 papers for 31 Journals.

Dr. Zhang, Jane       

[PRESENT POSITION] Director, Biostatistics, Allergan (2013-Present).

[FORMER POSITION] Principal Statistician, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (2008-2013).

[DEGREES] Ph.D. in Statistics, Rutgers University (2008); M.S. in Statistics, Fudan University (2003); B.S. in Mathematics, Fudan University (2000).

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Dr. Zhang has been working on applying statistical methodology to problems in drug discovery and drug development in various therapeutic areas, including ophthalmology, neurology, dermatology, cardiology, metabolism, and oncology. Her research interests include innovative clinical design, predictive modeling, likelihood inference, and nonparametric analysis.

[PUBLICATIONS] Dr. Zhang has published 12 articles in peer-reviewed interdisciplinary statistical and biomedical journals, including Statistics in Medicine, Communications in Statistics-Theory and Methods, IMS-LNMS, Mathematica Applicata, Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, The Journal of Nursing Scholarship, Research in Nursing & Health, Cell Metabolism, Veterinary Ophthalmology, and American Journal of Ophthalmology. These publications cover a wide range of topics on statistical methods and applications in clinical drug development and health system policy.

[ICSA ACTIVITES AND OFFICE HELD] Dr. Zhang has been an ICSA member since 2009. She served as a volunteer for the ICSA Applied Statistical Symposium in 2008.

[RELATED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES] Dr. Zhang served as an extended committee member to ASA Princeton-Trenton chapter 2015-2016.

[EDITORIAL SERVICES] Dr. Zhang is an Associate Editor for STAT (2012-Present); Statistical Reviewer, Journal of Emergency Nursing (2014-Present); Statistical Reviewer, Journal of Transport & Health (2015-Present).

[STATEMENT] It is my great honor being a candidate for a member of the Board of Directors, the International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA). It has been of huge benefit to me in the past 10 years by participating various ICSA conferences learning from talks/short courses and establishing connections.  Gradually, I have the urge to contribute to the ICSA, from “taking” only to also “giving”.

The association has already been very well organized and operated. I hope to have the opportunity to strengthen what have been established, such as further promoting statistical methodology and enhancing the interactions among Chinese statisticians in industry, academia, and government, as well as across the world and nations. At the same time, I would also like to influence on the Board of Directors for the following two specific areas.

The first, help to make our Chinese statisticians’ voices heard. We as Chinese statisticians have been very successful in terms of publications and technical details. However, some of us are struggling about how to deliver the genuine valuable messages with impact, and hence not being recognized correspondingly for all the hard work performed. If elected, I would strive to be an advocator on increasing the exposure to ICSA members on communication “delivery” tools, such as special short courses on soft skills and topic oriented round table discussions. This eventually would promote Chinese statisticians’ visibility across disciplines.

The second, help to develop young Chinese statisticians.  I’ve seen a few Chinese statisticians walking in the dark at their early career and not knowing whom to come to. Offering help by myself, the impact is limited. If elected, I would influence to establish a mentoring network for ICSA members. Across industry, academia and government, the established Chinese statisticians would be available through the mentoring system as role models to the young generation. Through periodical communications and meetings, the mentoring system would be valuable to develop the next generation Chinese statistician leaders in a fast track.

To conclude, both of the above would encourage membership retention and expansion to keep our ICSA growing larger with more impact. Your vote to make these goals as a reality through my service on the ICSA Board of Directors would be very much appreciated!

Dr. Zhao, Yichuan

[PRESENT POSITION] Dr. Yichuan Zhao is a Full Professor of Statistics in Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the Georgia State University (GSU) (2013 – Present).

[FORMER POSITION] Dr. Zhao was an Associate Professor of Statistics at the Georgia State University.  He has been a faculty member at GSU since 2002.

[DEGREES] He received his B.S. and M.S. in Mathematics from Beijing University in 1987 and 1991, M.S. in Stochastics & Operations Research from University of Utrecht, Netherlands in 1997, and Ph.D. in Statistics from Florida State University in 2002.

[FIELDS OF MAJOR STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES] Dr. Zhao’s research interest is to develop statistical methods in statistics and biostatistics. He has been working on the research areas in survival analysis, empirical likelihood methods, nonparametric statistics, statistical analysis of ROC curves, high-dimensional data analysis, bioinformatics, Monte Carlo methods, and statistical modeling of fuzzy systems.

[PUBLICATIONS] Dr. Zhao  has published two books,  one conference proceedings, and  about 90 peer-reviewed research papers in the journals, including Biometrika, Statistica Sinica, Scandinavian Journal of Statistics, Statistics in Medicine, Test, Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Annals of Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference, Canadian Journal of Statistics, Computational Statistics and Data Analysis, Journal of Nonparametric Statistics, Statistical Analysis and Its Interface, Statistics and Probability Letters, Journal of Bioinformatics and Computational Biology, International Journal of Biostatistics, Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, etc. The two books are New Advances in Statistics and Data Science (with Chen, D., Jin, Z., Li, G. Li, Y., and Liu, A., Springer, 2017), New Frontiers of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics (with Chen, D., Springer, 2018). The conference proceedings is Proceedings of International Conference on Physics, Mathematics and Statistics (IOP Publishing, UK, 2018). Dr.  Zhao has made statistical methodology contributions in statistics and biostatistics. More information can be found at    http://www2.gsu.edu/~matyiz/.

[ACTIVITES] Organizer and Program Committee Chair, 2016 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium; Program Committee and Best Student Paper Awards Committee Member, 2019 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium; Program Committee Member, 2018 ICSA China Conference;  Program Committee Member, 2017 ICSA  China Conference; Program Committee Member, 2014 ICSA and KISS Joint Applied Statistics Symposium; Chair of Publication Committee (2017-2019); Awards Committee Member (2017-2019); Program Committee Member (2015-2017); Organizers of Numerous Invited Sessions of the ICSA Conferences (2008-Present); Permanent  Member of ICSA for the Long Time.

[HONORS AND AWARDS] Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute, 2009; Publons’ global Peer Review Awards, 2018; Mentor for the recipient of Marshall Plan Scholarship in Austria, 2018-2019; Keynote Speaker, International Conference on Physics, Mathematics and Statistics, 2018;  ICSA Significant Contribution Award, the International Chinese Statistical Association, 2017; Research Fellow, Statistical and Applied Mathematical Sciences Institute (SAMSI), 2014; Ralph A. Bradley Award for the Best Dissertation, Florida State University, 2002.

[EDITORIAL SERVICES] Associate Editor, International Journal of Statistics in Medical Research (2013 – Present); Associate Editor, Journal of Applied Statistics  (2017-Present); Lead Guest Editor of Two Special Issues, Journal of Probability and Statistics (2012 and 2018); Co-Editor of One Special Issue, BioMed Research International (2016).

[RELATED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES]

Dr. Zhao has organized Workshop on Biostatistics and Bioinformatics six times (2012-2015, 2017-2018) since its initiation in 2012. He had organized and chaired numerous invited and topic contributed sessions for JSM, ENAR, IISA, and other statistical meetings. He served as a conference co-chair, International Conference on Physics, Mathematics and Statistics (ICPMS 2018), 2018.  He served on program committee in numerous statistics and data science conferences including International Conference on Big Data and Information Analytics, 2018; International Conference on Data Analytics (2012-present); 2018 IISA International Conference on Statistics; IEEE International Conference on Granular Computing; Statistics and its Interactions with Other Domains Conference, 2013; International Symposium on Foundations and Frontiers of Data Mining, 2012, etc. He is the primary liaison of National Institute of Statistical Sciences, 2018-present, and the liaison officer of the American Statistical Association Georgia Chapter, 2018- present. He served as a representative of the GSU in the Southern Regional Council on Statistics, the Southern Regional Council on Statistics, fall 2015 – present. He was an outside reviewer of numerous cases for promotion and tenure. He has been referees for over 50 statistics and biostatistics journals for more than 300 times. He served as a reviewer/review panel for Research Grant Proposals. He reviewed many book proposals and manuscripts for publishers.

[STATEMENT] I am deeply honored and grateful to be nominated as a candidate of the Board of Directors, ICSA. I have been actively engaged in the ICSA over the past years including the organizer of the 2016 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium, program committee of many ICSA conferences. In addition, I am a chair of the ICSA Publication Committee for three years. I have been active interacting with ICSA members. As a statistician in the Georgia State University for 17 years, I have been conducting a cutting-edge research in statistics and biostatistics. In addition, I have conducted an interdisciplinary research by collaborating extensively with other researchers. This Board of Director role will expand the service to the ICSA in the big data era. I look forward to making new contributions in expanding the impact of ICSA, promoting the new generation of ICSA members, and supporting ICSA members to take an important role in data sciences.

3. ICSA China Conference (July 1-4, 2019)

The 2019 ICSA China Conference will take place, July 1-July 4, 2019, in Tianjin, China. The Conference will be organized jointly by the International Chinese Statistical Association (ICSA), Nankai University and Shanghai Jiaotong University. It will be held on the campus of Nankai University.

The objective of the conference is to provide a platform for the exchange of recent research and developments in modern statistical methods, to create collaboration opportunities and to identify new directions for further research.

All sessions in the conference will be invited sessions. The program committee members have organized over 80 invited sessions.  Due to space limit, the conference will not accept any additional invited session proposals.  Please visit  http://icsa.jiusem.net/, or call Professor Zhezhen Jin at 1 (212) 305-9404 or email  zj7@cumc.columbia.edu, or stat@nankai.edu.cn for detailed information.

4. IMS-China International Conference on Statistics and Probability (July 6-10, 2019)

The IMS-China International Conference on Statistics and Probability will be held from July 6, 2019 to July 10 to 2019 at Dalian, China. It is an international conference held biennially and covers a wide range of topics in statistics, probability and their related areas. The conference provides an excellent forum for exchanges of the cutting-edge research at the frontiers of those areas, and for forging new research collaborations. Past IMS-China conferences were successfully held in Hangzhou (2008), Weihai (2009), Xian (2011), Chengdu (2013), Kuning (2015), and Nanning (2017).

The more information about the conference, please visit the website of the previous conference held in 2017: http://2017ims-china.gxun.edu.cn/info/1007/1066.htm.

5. ICSA Member Meeting at JSM 2019 (6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, July 31, 2019)

This meeting is open to all ICSA members with the refreshments to be provided. Please join us and meet ICSA executives, members of the committees, and network with the other members like you. The detailed meeting information is listed below.  Look forward to seeing you all,

Time:  6:00 PM to 9:00 PM, Wednesday, 7/31/2019

Venue: Hyatt Regency Denver-Centennial Ballroom E

Address:  650 15th Street, Denver CO 80202

6. The 4th ICSA – Canada Chapter Symposium, Advances and Innovations in Statistics and Data Science (August 9-11, 2019)

The 4th ICSA – Canada Chapter Symposium, Advances and Innovations in Statistics and Data Science, will be held August 9-11, 2019 at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Devon Lin of Queen’s University is the Chair of the Local Organizing Committee, Wenqing He of the University of Western Ontario is the Chair of the Scientific Committee. Professor Tony Cai of University of Pennsylvania and Professor Runzhe Li of Pennsylvania State University will be the Keynote Speakers of the Symposium.
The Symposium welcomes proposals for invited sessions. An invited session consists of four speakers (or three speakers and a discussant), with each speaker having 25 minutes for the presentation and discussion.

Please visit  http://www.icsa-canada-chapter.org/symposium2019/home.html for more updated information.

7. ICSA Midwest & NIC-ASA Joint Fall Meeting (October 24-25, 2019)

A great event for networking and updating quantitative skills.

Where: Hilton Chicago/Northbrook, 2855 Milwaukee Ave., Northbrook, IL 60062

Who: Statisticians, Business Analysts, Data Scientists, and All Quantitative Scientists!

Website: http://midwest-icsa.org/

Day 1 Short courses on historical data borrowing in clinical trials and master protocols

Day 2 parallel sessions

Breakfast and lunch are included

Generous student poster awards

Career services for students available

Free registration for student attendees

8. The 11th ICSA International Conference (December 20-22, 2019)

The 11th ICSA International Conference will be held at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, from December 20, 2019 to December 22, 2019.  Organizing committee Chair: Hongzhe Li (hongzhe@pennmedicine.upenn.edu).

9. 2020 Applied Statistics Symposium (May 17-20, 2020)

ICSA 2020 Applied Statistics Symposium, May 17-20, 2020, The Westin Galleria Houston, Houston, Texas.  For information, please contact professor Hulin Wu at Hulin.Wu@uth.tmc.edu.  Refer to “Upcoming ICSA Meetings #3” for details.

10. 2020 ICSA China Conference (June 27-30, 2020)

The 2020 ICSA China Conference will take place at Jinniu Hotel, Chengdu, China, from June 27-30 2020. The objective of the conference is to provide a platform for the exchange of recent research and developments in modern statistical methods, to create collaboration opportunities and to identify new directions for further research.

Program Committee Chair: Professor Jianxin Pan, University of Manchester, UK

jianxin.pan@manchester.ac.uk.

11. ICSA Springer Book Series in Statistics

The co-editors of ICSA Springer book series in statistics, Drs. Jiahua Chen and Din Chen, have reported that there are 10 books in the series now. If you plan to write books in the series, please contact Dr. Jiahua Chen (jhchen@stat.ubc.ca) or Dr. Din Chen (dinchen@email.unc.edu). Five books in the ICSA Springer book series were published in 2017:

1) “Monte-Carlo Simulation-Based Statistical Modeling” (edited by Chen, Ding-Geng, Chen, John Dean);

2) “Phase II Clinical Development of New Drugs” (edited by Ting, N., Chen, D.-G., Ho, S., Cappelleri, J.C.).

3) “Biased Sampling, Over-identified Parameter Problems and Beyond” (edited by Qin, Jing)

4) “Statistical Modeling for Degradation Data” (edited by Chen, D.-G., Lio, Y., Ng, H.K.T., Tsai, T.-R.)

5) “New Advances in Statistics and Data Science” (edited by Chen, D.-G., Jin, Z., Li, G., Li, Y., Liu, A., Zhao, Y.)

Thanks to all authors who contributed to these books.

1) http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811033063;

2) http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811041921;

3) http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811048548;

4) http://www.springer.com/us/book/9789811051937;

5) http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319694153.

The following 6 books were published in 2018:

1) Biopharmaceutical Applied Statistics Symposium, Volume 1 Design of Clinical Trials (edited by Peace, K.E., Chen, D.-G., Menon, S.)

2) Biopharmaceutical Applied Statistics Symposium, Volume 2 Biostatistical Analysis of Clinical Trials (edited by Peace, K.E., Chen, D.-G., Menon, S.)

3) Biopharmaceutical Applied Statistics Symposium, Volume 3 Pharmaceutical Applications (edited by Peace, K.E., Chen, D.-G., Menon, S.)

4) Proceedings of the Pacific Rim Statistical Conference for Production Engineering: Big Data, Production Engineering and Statistics (edited by Choi, D., Jang, D., Lai, T.L., Lee, Y., Lu, Y., Ni, J., Qian, P., Qiu, P., Tiao, G.)

5) Statistical Analysis of Microbiome Data with R (edited by Xia, Y., Sun, J., Chen, D.-G.)

6) New Frontiers of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics (edited by Zhao, Y., Chen, D.-G.)

B. Sponsored and Co-Sponsored Journals

1. Statistica Sinica

Forthcoming papers’ information is available at http://www3.stat.sinica.edu.tw/statistica/. The new issue (Volume 28, Number 4, October 2018) is published.

ICSA members have access to these articles via the “membership only area” at http://www.icsa.org. If you have any problems with subscription, please contact the editorial office through ss@stat.sinica.edu.tw.

2. Statistics in Biosciences

The published new issue is Volume 11 Issue 1 in April 2019

https://link.springer.com/journal/12561/11/1

Recently accepted articles can be found at the journal website

https://link.springer.com/journal/12561/onlineFirst/page/1

A link for submitting your article to SIBS online is below

https://www.editorialmanager.com/sibs/default.aspx

3. Statistics and Its Interface (SII) Call for Papers

Statistics and Its Interface is an international statistical journal promoting the interface between statistics and other disciplines including, but not limited to, biomedical science, geosciences, computer sciences, engineering, and social and behavioral sciences. The journal publishes high-quality articles in broad areas of statistical science, emphasizing substantive problems, sound statistical models and methods, clear and efficient computational algorithms, and insightful discussions of the motivating problems. Visit SII’s web page at

http://intlpress.com/site/pub/pages/journals/items/sii/_home/_main/ for more information. Most recent issue is available at http://intlpress.com/site/pub/pages/journals/items/sii/content/vols/0012/index.html.

International Press and Tsinghua University Mathematical Science Center are pleased to announce open online access (free of charge) to the journal Statistics and Its Interface (SII) which includes five volumes.

Statistics and Its Interface (SII) invites submissions for a special issue on Modern Meta-Analysis and Network Meta-Analysis. SII promotes interface between statistical theory and methodology and applications. Thus, we strongly encourage innovative meta-analysis theory or methods in all areas of sciences. Your papers, once accepted, will be published together in a future issue of SII.

The submission deadline for the special issue is November 1, 2019. All submissions must be online through the website http://www.e-publications.org/ip/sbs/index.php/index/login and please state that your submissions are “For the Special Issue on Modern Meta-Analysis and Network Meta-Analysis” in the Box of Comments to the editors.

For more information, please download the file: https://icsaimage.files.wordpress.com/2018/09/siimetaanalysis.doc.

With your support and collaboration, we are confident that the special issue will be a success that will reflect the state-of-art of research at the frontier of this vital and rapidly developing area. We look forward to receiving your papers in due course.

Jeng-Min Chiou (Co-Guest Editor), Academia Sinica

Wensheng Guo (Co-Guest Editor), University of Pennsylvania

Fang Yao (Co-Guest Editor), University of Toronto

Ming-Hui Chen (Co-Editor-in-Chief), University of Connecticut

Yuedong Wang (Co-Editor-in-Chief), University of California, Santa Barbara

C. Upcoming ICSA Meetings

Please find below a list of upcoming ICSA meetings. This list also appeared on the ICSA website. Meetings not included in our list are not authentic ICSA meetings. If you have any questions, please contact Gang Li, the ICSA Executive Director (gli@its.jnj.com).

1. 2019 ICSA China Conference (July 1-4, 2019)

Refer to Highlights #3 for details.

2. The 11th ICSA International Conference (December 20-22, 2019)

Refer to Highlights #8 for details

3. ICSA 2020 Applied Statistics Symposium (May 17-20, 2020)    

You are cordially invited to the 2020 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium in Houston!

The ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium will be held from Sunday, May 17 to Wednesday, May 20, 2020 at The Westin Galleria Houston, 5060 W Alabama Street, Houston, Texas. Please send any inquiry to Dr. Hulin Wu (Hulin.Wu@uth.tmc.edu). Houston is the fourth-most populous city in the United States. Houston is a global city, with strengths in business, international trade, entertainment, culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine, and research. It is home to many cultural institutions and exhibits, which attract more than 7 million visitors a year. Notable facilities include the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Museum of Natural Science, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the Station Museum of Contemporary Art, Holocaust Museum Houston, the Houston Zoo, and NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center. Houston is the seat of the internationally renowned Texas Medical Center (TMC), which contains the world’s largest concentration of research and healthcare institutions including University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Baylor College of Medicine,  Memorial Hermann Hospital, The Methodist Hospital, and Texas Children’s Hospital. Several universities of higher education such as The University of St. Thomas, University of Houston, and Rice University are located within the city. Details are forthcoming on the symposium website.

Call for Invited Session Proposals

We welcome your invited session proposals. The invited sessions will be processed through program committee. If you plan to organize an invited session, please communicate with one of the program committee members. An invited session will be 100 minutes with 4 speakers or 3 speakers and one discussant. A proposal includes 1) session title, 2) organizer, 3) session chair, 4) list of speakers and discussant. It is required to confirm all speakers’ availability before submitting a proposal. There is a one-talk rule for speakers, but one can serve as a discussant in another invited session while speaking in an invited or contributed session. The deadline for the invited session proposal is November 1, 2019.

Call for Student Paper Award Applications

Up to eight student award winners (five Student Travel Awards, one Jiann-Ping Hsu Pharmaceutical and Regulatory Sciences Student Paper, and possible two ASA Biopharmaceutical Awards) will be selected. Each winner will receive a plaque or certificate, an award for travel and registration reimbursement up to $1,000 or a cash award of $550, whichever is bigger, as well as free registration for a short course. The deadline for applications is February 15, 2020.

Call for Short Course Proposals

Anyone who is interested in giving a one-day or half-day short course at 2020 ICSA Applied Statistics Symposium is welcome to submit a short-course proposal to Dr. Wenyi Wang (wwang7@mdanderson.org). The submission deadline is December 15, 2019.

Executive Committee

• Executive Committee Chair: Hulin Wu (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston)
• Scientific Program Chair: Momiao Xiong (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston) and Jianhua Huang (Texas A&M University)
• Program Book and Website Committee Chair: Yunxin Fu and Ashraf Yaseen (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston)
• Local Committee Chair: Hongyu Miao (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston)
• Treasurer: Dejian Lai (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston)
• Student Paper Competition Committee Chair: Ruosha Li (University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston) and Jing Ning (University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center)
• Short Course Committee Chair: Wenyi Wang (University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center)
• Fund Raising Committee Chair: Rui (Sammi) Tang (Servier Pharmaceuticals)

Dr. Hulin Wu at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (hulin.wu@uth.tmc.edu) chairs the Organization Committee.

4. 2020 ICSA China Conference (June 27-30, 2020)

Refer to Highlights #10 for details

D. Upcoming Co-Sponsored Meetings

Please find below a list of upcoming ICSA co-sponsored meetings. This list also appeared on the ICSA website. Meetings not included in our list are not authentic co-sponsored meetings. If you have any questions, please contact Gang Li, the ICSA Executive Director (gli@its.jnj.com).

1. Conference on Current Trends in Survey Statistics (August 13-16, 2019)

The conference “Current Trends in Survey Statistics” will be held in Institute for Mathematical Sciences, National University of Singapore, from 13th to 16th August, 2019.  We are happy to announce that this conference has already been declared as a satellite conference to the 62nd ISI World Science Congress to be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from 18th to 23rd August, 2019.

More information about the conference, including the organising committees, timeline, venue, registration and abstract submission can be found in the following web-page:

https://ims.nus.edu.sg/orgsites/2019data/.

Questions and queries should be directed to: Sanjay Chaudhuri, Department of Statistics and Applied Probability, NUS,  email: sanjay@stat.nus.edu.sg or  stasc@nus.edu.sg

2. The 6th International Symposium on Biopharmaceutical Statistics (August 26-30, 2019)

The 6th International Symposium on Biopharmaceutical Statistics (ISBS2019) will be held 26-30 August, 2019 at Kyoto International Conference Center in Kyoto, Japan. The purpose of the symposium is to bring together statisticians, quantitative scientists, medical product development professionals and regulators across the world to share and exchange information, experiences, challenges and research findings, and to promote international standards for statistical practice in the biopharmaceutical industry. The theme of the 2019 symposium is “Statistical Innovation and Contribution in the Era of Precision Healthcare“.

Keynote speakers

Robert Hemmings, Consilium Salmonson and Hemmings

Tze Leung Lai, Stanford University

Frank W Rockhold, Duke University

Sue-Jane Wang, Food and Drug Administration (remotely via video)

Further keynote speakers will be available soon.

Registration is NOW OPEN!

Kyoto is ready to welcome you!  Registration is now open for ISBS2019. The conference will include 6 half-day short courses on August 26, and five keynote lectures, 18 invited sessions, 17 topic-contributed session, 2 workshops, and 6 featured sessions in regulatory science on August 27-30. Social events will include a welcome mixer (August 27) and a conference dinner (August 29).  Further program will be available soon. The registration fees include: access to all sessions, welcome reception and lunches and coffee breaks from Tuesday (Augsut 27) to Friday (August 30). You are encouraged to register early. Early bird registration is open until 5PM, 31 May, 2019.

Call for contributed abstract

We’ve received some wonderful abstracts and if you’re quick, there’s still time to submit an abstract via online. Each abstract submission must include the title, list of authors and author affiliations, and abstract, with each submission having a maximum length of 250 words and keywords. The number of abstract submissions with the same presenting author is limited to one.

Statistics in Biopharmaceutical Statistics (SBR), an Official Journal of the American Statistical Association (ASA), will publish a special issue for the ISBS2019. All presenters at ISBS2019 including both of speakers (at invited/topic contributed/contributed sessions) and poster presenters are invited to submit their high quality papers on statistical methods for the life sciences and medical product development. In particular, submissions to the symposium theme “Statistical Innovation and Contribution in the Era of Precision Healthcare” are welcome. All submissions will be peer-reviewed according to the reviewing principles of SBR.

3. The 3rd International Conference on Statistical Distributions and Applications (October 10-12, 2019)

The 3rd International Conference on Statistical Distributions and Applications will be held from October 10, 2019 to October 12, 2019 at Eberhard Conference Center, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA.

For more information about the conference, please visit http://people.cst.cmich.edu/lee1c/icosda2019.

4. The 11th International Multiple Comparisons Procedures (MCP) Conference (December 12-15, 2019)

The 11th International Multiple Comparisons Procedures (MCP) Conference will be held during December 12-15, 2019 in Taipei. The conference will cover the latest methodological and applied developments in the areas of simultaneous and selective inference: testing, confidence intervals, estimation, adaptive designs and statistical modelling, under a variety of error-rates to be controlled. The conference will be supplemented by pre-conference short courses.  Please visit http://www.mcp-conference.org/hp/2019/ for detailed information.

Open date for abstract submission is 1st March, 2019, deadline for abstract submission is 1st June, 2019.

5. Online Training Program

Online training serves as a viable alternative to traditional continuing education options, e.g., to short courses offered at biostatistical conferences.  Over the past year, the ASA Biopharmaceutical Section has been working on creating an online training program aimed at clinical trial statisticians and set up a pilot program which includes half-day and full-day courses on key topics in biopharmaceutical statistics:

Analysis of Longitudinal and Incomplete Data

Multiplicity Issues in Clinical Trials

Analysis of Surrogate Endpoints in Clinical Trials

The section has received much positive feedback from industry and academic statisticians.  Clinical trial statisticians who took advantage of the online training program emphasized that this program is convenient, inexpensive and quite flexible.

A similar online training program has been set up for ICSA members.  As a member of the ICSA, you will receive a 50% discount when you sign up for any course included in the program.  The online training courses are based on professionally recorded videos using a format similar to that used in YouTube videos. The videos can be accessed 24/7 on a computer or even on a smartphone. The cost of online training is quite low compared to traditional training, and it can be further reduced by using a group-training format. Up to 25 people can view an online training course with a single registration, which lowers the cost of online training to about $20-25 per person for full-day courses and $10-15 per person for half-day courses.

For more information about the online training program and to sign up for the individual online courses, please visit this web page:

http://sprmm.com/icsa/

E. Job Listings

Assistant Professor – Department of Applied Mathematics (several posts) (Ref. 19022115), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is a government-funded tertiary institution in Hong Kong.  It offers programmes at various levels including Doctorate, Master’s, and Bachelor’s degrees.  It has a full-time academic staff strength of around 1,400.  The total annual consolidated expenditure budget of the University is in excess of HK$7.4 billion.

DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED MATHEMATICS

Assistant Professor in Applied Statistics and Financial Mathematics / Engineering and Computational Mathematics / Applied Optimization and Operations Research (several posts) (Ref. 19022115)

The Department of Applied Mathematics (AMA) is part of the Faculty of Applied Science and Textiles. The Department offers undergraduate programmes in Investment Science and Finance Analytics, and Data Science and Analytics, and makes a significant contribution to most of the other academic programmes of the University by providing service teaching.  It also offers master’s programmes in Applied Mathematics for Science and Technology with specialism in Decision Science and Actuarial and Investment Science, and Operational Research and Risk Analysis.  Members of the Department have expertise in applied optimisation and optimal control, engineering computation, operational research, management science and applied statistics.  There are currently 43 academic staff and about 50 research personnel in the Department.  Please visit the website at http://www.polyu.edu.hk/ama for more information about the Department.

The appointees will be required to (a) teach and contribute to curriculum development at undergraduate and postgraduate levels; (b) supervise MPhil and PhD students; (c) engage in scholarly research, consultancy and other scholarly activities leading to publications in top-tier refereed journals and awards of research grants; and (d) undertake academic and departmental administrative duties.  The Department has established a Joint Research Institute with the Academy of Mathematics and System Sciences of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.  The appointees are expected to be actively involved in the activities of the Institute.

Applicants should have (a) a doctoral degree in Mathematics, Statistics, Financial Mathematics, Operations Research, Computational Mathematics, Applied Mathematics or a closely related field; (b) an established track record in research and scholarship, including refereed publications and external grant applications; (c) expertise in applied statistics, operations research and mathematics; and (d) a demonstrated commitment to excellence in teaching.

Remuneration and Conditions of Service

A highly competitive remuneration package will be offered.  Initial appointments will be on a fixed-term gratuity-bearing contract.  Re-engagement thereafter is subject to mutual agreement.  For general information on terms and conditions for appointment of academic staff in the University, please visit the website at http://www.polyu.edu.hk/hro/TC.htm.  Applicants should state their current and expected salary in the application.

Application

Please send a completed application form to Human Resources Office, 13/F, Li Ka Shing Tower, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong or via email to hrstaff@polyu.edu.hk.  Application forms can be obtained via the above channels or downloaded from http://www.polyu.edu.hk/hro/job/en/guide_forms/forms.php.  If a separate curriculum vitae is to be provided, please still complete the application form which will help speed up the recruitment process.  Consideration of applications will commence on 20 March 2019 until the positions are filled.  The University’s Personal Information Collection Statement for recruitment can be found at http://www.polyu.edu.hk/hro/job/en/guide_forms/pics.php.