The Section on Statistics in the Environment (ENVR) sponsors a student
paper competition on the topic of environmental statistics. Papers may consist of novel approaches to
the analysis of environmental data, new methodology with a clear application to an
environmental statistical issue, or application of statistics to environmental problems. The selected winning papers are presented in a contributed session at the Joint Statistical
Meetings (JSM).
Papers are reviewed by the ENVR Student Paper Competition Award Committee. Selection of the winning paper(s) is based
primarily on statistical innovation and significance of the contribution to environmental
science.
We encourage students to submit papers on their research in environmental. More information is available on the ASA website.
Information on the 2015 competition can be found here.
2014
First Place:
Won Chang
Penn State University
Title: Fast Dimension-Reduced Climate Model Calibration
Co-authors: Murali Haran, Klaus Keller, and Roman Olson
Honorable Mention:
Brook T. Russell
Colorado State University
Title: Data Mining for Extreme Behavior with Application to Ground Level Ozone
Co-authors: Daniel S. Cooley, William C. Porter, Colette L. Heald, and Brian Reich
Robert Richardson
University of California, Santa Cruz
Title: Flexible Integro-Difference Equation Modeling for Spatio-Temporal Data
Co-authors: Athanasios Kottas and Bruno Sanso
2013
First Place:
Stefano Castruccio
University of Chicago
Title: Global Space-Time Models for Climate Ensembles
Co-author: Michael Stein
Honorable Mention:
Libo Sun
Colorado State University
Title: Penalized Importance Sampling for Parameter Estimation in Stochastic
Differential Equations for Two Chronic Wasting Disease Epidemics
Co-authors: Chihoon Lee and Jennifer Hoeting
Stacey Alexeeff
Harvard University
Title: Bias Analysis for the Use of Spatially Predicted Air Pollution
Exposures in Linear Models of Air Pollution Health Effects
Co-authors: Raymond J. Carroll and Brent A. Coull
2012
First Place:
Ephraim Hanks
Colorado State University
Title: Random Fields and Statistical Models for Circuits
Co-author: Mevin Hooten
Honorable Mention:
Luke Bornn
University of British Columbia
Title: Nonstationary Modeling Through Dimension Expansion
Co-authors: Gavin Shaddick and Jim Zidek
Rajarshi Guhaniyogi
University of Minnesota
Title: Modeling Low-Rank Spatially Varying Cross-Covariances Using Predictive
Processes with Application to Soil Nutrient Data
Co-authors: Andrew O. Finley, Sudipto Banerjee, and Rich Kobe
2011
First place:
Matthias Katzfuss
The Ohio State University
Title: Bayesian Hierarchical Spatio-Temporal Smoothing for Massive Data Sets
Co-author: Noel Cressie
Honorable Mention:
Ephraim Hanks
Colorado State University
Title: Velocity-Based Movement Modeling for Individual- and Population-Level Inference
Co-authors: Mevin B. Hooten, Devin S. Johnson, and Jeremy T. Sterling
2010
First place:
David Dail
Oregon State University
Title: Models for estimating population size from repeated counts of an open population
Co-author: Lisa Madsen
Runner-up:
Ying Sun
Texas A&M University
Title: Functional boxplots for complex space-time data visualization
Co-author: Marc Genton
2008
First Place:
Matt Heaton
Duke University
Title: Temporally Correlated Dirichlet Processes for Pollution Receptor Models
Co-authors: Shane Reese and William Christensen
Amanda Hering
Texas A&M
Title: Powering Up with Space-Time Wind Forecasting
Co-author: Marc Genton
2007
First Place:
Andrew Finley
University of Minnesota
Title: Bayesian multivariate process modeling for prediction of forest attributes
Co-authors: Sudipto Banerjee, Alan R. Ek, and Ronald E. McRoberts
2006
First Place:
Man Sik Park
North Carolina State University
Title: New Classes of Asymetric Spatial-Temporal Covariance Models
Honorable Mention:
Kathyrn Irvine
Oregon State University
Title: Spatial Designs and Strength of Spatial Signal: Effects on Covariance Estimation
Co-authors: Alex Gitelman and Jennifer Hoeting
2005
First Place:
Alejandro Veen
UCLA Statistics
Title: Assessing Spatial Point Process Models for California Earthquakes
using weighted K-functions
Co-Authors: Frederic Schoenberg
Honorable Mention:
Andrea Cook
Harvard Biostatistics
Title: Detecting Spatial Clustering in Matched Case-Control Studies
Co-Author: Yi Li
2004
First Place:
Holly Janes
University of Washington
Title: Overlap bias in the case-crossover design, with application to air pollution exposures
Co-Authors: Lianne Sheppard and Thomas Lumley
Honorable Mention:
Mikyoung Jun
University of Chicago
Title: Statistical comparison of observed and CMAQ modeled daily sulfate levels
Co-Author: Michael L. Stein
2003
Rebecca A. Buchanan
University of Washington
Title: A cost analysis of ranked set sampling to estimate a population mean
Matthew W. Mitchell
North Carolina State University
Title: A likelihood ratio test for separability of covariances
2002
Petrutza Caragea
University of North Carolina
Title: Approximate likelihoods for spatial processes.
Stanislav Kolenikov
University of North Carolina
Title: Spatio-temporal modeling of longitudinal PM2.5 data with missing values.
2000
First Place:
Deepak K. Agarwal
University of Connecticut
Investigating tropical deforestation using two stage spatially misaligned regression models
Honorable Mention:
Jun Zhu
Iowa State University
Asymptotic inference for spatial CDF's over time
1999
First Place:
Li Zhu
School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota
Title: Hierarchical Modeling of Spatio-temporally Misaligned Data:
Relating Traffic Density to Pediatric Asthma Incidence
1998
First Place:
Breda Munoz-Hernandez
Department of Statistics, Oregon State University
Title: Design-based EOF model for environmental monitoring data analysis
Co-Authors: Virginia M. Lesser and Fred Ramsey
1997
First Place:
Dawn E. Haines
Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University
Title: Estimating Populations Size Using Multiple Frames
Advisor: Kenneth H. Pollock
Honorable Mention:
Russell Alpizar-Jara
Biomathematics Graduate Program, Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University
Title: Population Estimation Using a Combination of Line Transect
and Capture-Recapture for Mark-Resighting Experiments
Advisor: Kenneth H. Pollock
1996
First Place:
Guoqin Su
Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, University of Illinois at Chicago
Title: Statistical Scoring Procedures for Laboratory Performance Evaluation
Advisor: S. Hedayat
Second Place:
Kimberly Welsh Johnson
Biometrics Unit, Cornell University
Title: Canonical Correspondence Analysis as an Approximation to Gaussian Ordination
Advisor: Naomi Altman
Honorable Mention:
Dawn. E. Haines
Statistics Department, North Carolina State University
Title: Estimating Bald Eagle Population Size Using Dual Frame Sampling Techniques
Advisor: Kenneth Pollock
Fang Yi Luo
Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Department of Environmental Health,
University of Cincinatti
Title: Testing an Improved Method for Missing Data Imputation
Advisor: Paul Succop
Huiling Pei
Division of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Department of Environmental Health,
University of Cincinatti
Title: Anaconda Longitudinal Arsenic Exposure Study
Advisor: Paul Succop
1995
First Place:
Brian M. Steel
Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Montana
Title: Kalman Filter Analysis of Growth-Climate Relationships in Old-Growth Forests
Advisor: David Patterson
Honorable Mention:
Song Qian
School of the Environment, Duke University
Title: Computing the Area Affected by Phosphorus Runoff in an Everglades
Wetland Using Bayesian Kriging
Advisor: Kenneth Reckhow
1994
First Place:
Lara J. Wolfson
Department of Statistics, Carnegie-Mellon University
Title: A Decision-Theoretic Approach to Environmental Remediation
Advisor: Joseph Kadane
Second Place:
Oliver Schabenberger
Dept. of Forestry, Section on Forest Biometrics, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Title: Nonlinear Mixed Effects Growth Models for Repeated Measures in Ecology
Advisor: Timothy Gregoire
1993
First Place:
Hulin Wu
Department of Statistics, Florida State University
Title: Modeling and Regressing Spatial Binary Data with Application to the Distribution of Species
Advisor: Fred Huffer
Second Place:
Kai Sun
Department of Statistics, University of Missouri
Title: Estimation of Acute Toxicity by Fitting Dose-Time-Response Surface
Advisor: Asit Basu