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ASA Section on Statistical Computing &

ASA Section on Statistical Graphics

The ASA Section on Statistical Computing's mission is to promote computational applications that solve problems arising in statistics and data science. Through these efforts, we advocate efficient and user-friendly computational applications arising from methodological and software developments. In addition, we encourage the joint application of computational statistical and data science techniques in other fields, and act as a focal point for computational activities within the ASA. The importance of these activities is becoming even more critical with the advance of data technologies that challenge us with new problems.

The ASA Section on Statistical Graphics's mission is to foster understanding and proper use of statistical graphics in statistics, in other scientific fields, in the greater data visualization community, in the mass media, and among the general public. In addition, we encourage the teaching of statistical graphics in universities, colleges, secondary schools, and primary schools and we encourage research in statistical graphics and data visualization to provide a focus within the Association for it. The importance of these activities is becoming even more critical with the advent of enormous datasets of extremely high dimensionality.

If these activities interest you, please consider adding either or both sections to your ASA membership.

2024 Student Awards announced!

The review panel of the John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award consisted of Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel (Section on Statistical Computing), Claire Bowen (Section on Statistical Computing), Steven Chiou (Section on Statistical Computing), Philip Waggoner (Awards Chair/joint member; non-voting committee chair). The 2024 John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award goes to:

The review panel of the Student Paper Award consisted of Haim Bar (Section on Statistical Computing and Section on Statistical Graphics), Lucy D’Agostino McGowan (Section on Statistical Graphics), Susan VanderPlas (Section on Statistical Graphics), Tim Hesterberg (Section on Statistical Computing), and Philip Waggoner (Awards Chair/joint member; committee chair). The 2024 Student Paper Awards go to:

  • Jae Choi, University of Texas at Dallas, "Revisiting Link Prediction with the Dowker Complex";
  • Yu Wang, Medical College of Wisconsin, "Rforce: Random Forest for Composite Endpoints";
  • Thomas Sun, Rice University, "Ultra-efficient MCMC for Bayesian longitudinal functional data analysis";
  • Yuhang Lin, Center for Statistics and Applications in Forensic Evidence (CSAFE), Iowa State University, "A reproducible pipeline for extracting representative signals from wire cuts".

The student award recipients will present their work in a topic-contributed session of the 2024 Joint Statistical Meetings. They will also receive their certificate and cash prize at the mixer of the Section on Statistical Computing and the Section on Statistical Graphics.

2023 ASA Statistical Computing and Graphics Award

The Joint Statistical Computing and Statistical Graphics Sections of the American Statistical Association (ASA) are pleased to announce that the 2023 ASA Statistical Computing and Graphics Award goes to Dr. Douglas Bates:

"For his fundamental contributions to statistical computing infrastructure, developments of S, R, Julia, and mixed-effects models, and their applications in statistical research and practice."

Dr. Bates is currently an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. in Statistics from Queen's University at Kingston in 1978. After being on the faculty of Mathematics at University of Alberta, he joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1980, where he chaired the Department from 1991 to 1994. Throughout his career, he has published two books and over 40 papers. He has served on the editorial board of the SIAM Journal of Scientific and Statistical Computing (1983-1984), The American Statistican (1989), the Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics (1990-1993), and the Current Index to Statistics (1998-2003). He became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1992. Dr. Bates has contributed significantly to the development of S and R languages since early days. He is a founding member of the R Development Core Team. Besides, he is well known for his impressive contribution to the development and implementation of mixed-effects models. He is one of the major developers of the three widely used packages for mixed-effects models: "nlme" (for S and R), "lme4" (for R) and "MixedModels" (for Julia).

The ASA Statistical Computing and Graphics Award is the most prestigious award bestowed by the Section on Statistical Computing and the Section on Statistical Graphics. It recognizes an individual or team for innovation in computing, software, or graphics that has had a significant impact on statistical practice or research. The past awardees are Howard Wainer (2021), Luke Tierney (2019), Bill Cleveland (2016), and Robert Gentleman and Ross Ihaka (2010).

The award committee consisted of the past and present chairs of the Section on Statistical Computing (Usha Govindarajulu and Jun Yan) and the Section on Statistical Graphics (Simon Urbanek and Ed Mulrow).

The award will be presented at the two Sections' mixer at the 2023 Joint Statistical Meeting (JSM). An invited session honoring Dr. Douglas Bates, organized by Dr. Yazhen Wang, is reserved for the 2023 JSM.

Congratulations 2023 Data Challenge Expo Winners!

Student Winners

FIRST: Public Transit Policies to Promote Equitable Urban Mobility
Jenny Y Huang, Duke University; Gaurav Rajesh Parikh, Duke Kunshan University; Albert Sun, Duke University
 
SECOND: Understanding Changes of Racial and Ethnic Representation in Homeowners and US Post-Secondary Institutions
Jhonatan Jorge Medri Cobos, University of South Florida; Tejasvi Channagiri, University of South Florida"
THIRD: An Analysis on the Impact of Socioeconomic Status on Success in School
Alyson Everett, Miami University; Thomas Fisher, The University of Miami - Ohio
 
Professional Winner
Demographic Profile and Factors of Homeownership Disparity in the United States
Rachel Richardson, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - Battelle; David Degnan, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - Battelle; Anastasiya Prymolenna, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - Battelle; Natalie Winans, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - Battelle; Lisa Bramer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory - Battelle

2023 The Annual Data Challenge Expo


The Computing, Government, and Graphics sections of the ASA are proud to sponsor the annual Data Challenge Expo at the JSM 2023 meetings to be held in Toronto, Canada from August 5 – 10, 2023 (community.amstat.org/dataexpo/home). For instructors in statistics or data science, the challenge could be integrated into the classroom as a final project.

Participation is open to students and professionals from the private or public sector. Using statistical and visualization tools and methods, contestants will analyze the given data set(s). Awards will be given in two categories – Professional (one $500 award) and Student (three awards $1,500, $1,000, and $500).  Instructions for entry can be found at community.amstat.org/dataexpo/home.