Summer 2018 Newsletter
In this issue
LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
UPCOMING DEADLINES & EVENTS
LETTER FROM THE PROGRAM-CHAIR
ASA STUDENT PAPER AWARDS
SSS INVITED & TOPIC CONTRIBUTED JSM 2018 SESSIONS
NEW SSS POSTER COMPETITION
SOCIAL STATISTICS SECTION 2019 EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Letter from the chair
Dear Social Statistics Section members:
Welcome to the first edition of the revived newsletter for our Section (and special thanks to our Publications Officer, Morgan Earp, for bringing it back)! We hope to produce several newsletters per year going forward. The focus of this issue is to alert you to SSS-sponsored sessions, roundtables and award winners featured at the upcoming JSM Conference in Vancouver. Going forward, our goal is for this newsletter to serve your interests. If there is particular content you’d like to see, let us know!
More generally, we are interested in your thoughts on what the Social Statistics Section can do to best support its members. Like other Sections, we actively plan for content relevant to our members to be included in the JSM program, support awards and opportunities for students, and ensure that our interests are represented throughout Association business. We’ve been successful at these activities for a long time—in fact, we were one of the first Sections ever formed in ASA—but is there more we should be doing? As members, what additional activities, if any, would you like to see the Social Statistics Section take on?
Please join us at the SSS Business Meeting on Tuesday, July 31 at 5:30 PM, to discuss these and other topics. If you can’t be there but have thoughts you’d like to share, please feel free to contact me or other Section Officers at any time. We look forward to hearing from you and keeping our Section as vibrant as possible.
-Paul Beatty, SSS Chair (2018)
Upcoming deadlines & events
June 30 - August 2: JSM late registration (increased fees apply)
July 28 - August 2: Joint Statistical Meetings (Vancouver Convention Center)
2018 jsm uPDATE and Report from the Program Chair
Asaph Young Chun
Along with the 2018 theme, #LeadWithStatistics, a vibrant JSM program is waiting for you, whether as a speaker, chair, discussant, roundtable leader, or observer. I am delighted that SSS will be offering an outstanding program featuring 5 invited sessions (3 allocated + 2 winning the invited session competition), 5 topic-contributed sessions, and a SPEED session of over 20 electronic posters. We have also organized regular contributed sessions and several poster presentations. We have over 120 speakers (including presenters, chairs, organizers, and discussants) contributing to a variety of SSS sessions in Vancouver.
Together with SSS members and the Executive Committee of SSS, we have developed a rigorous SSS program featuring both applied and theoretical issues of social statistics, such as predictive analytics, causal inference, and evidence-based policy making. In the wake of interdisciplinary innovations affecting both data producers and data users, the 2018 SSS program highlights cutting-edge research issues, such as the innovative use of administrative data, data linking methods, the use of multiple data sources, and machine learning in social science. Knowing the impact that social statistics can make on real-world issues, we are pleased to host a number of invited and topic-contributed sessions addressing real-world applications of social statistics in public health, education, economy, and political events.
I am grateful to our SSS members for sharing their insights and helping to continually increase the quality of Social Statistics! I am also excited to launch the inaugural SSS poster competition, which is designed to stimulate further interaction between speakers and attendees and to facilitate conversations among SSS members. I would like to thank Stephanie Galvin, Program Chair-Elect, for initiating it with me. This year we are again pleased to announce that the student paper award program, a collaboration between SRMS, GSS, and SSS, continues to recognize and support emerging leaders and scholars of survey statistics and methodology.
As a journalist-turned-sociologist, I observe that the Social Statistics Section continues to be the Meeting Place for those concerned about social statistics and its rigorous applications to real-world problems, isn’t it?
See you in Vancouver!
-Young Chun, SSS Program Chair (2018)
ASA 2018 Student Paper Award Winners
Stephanie Galvin
The ASA Student Paper Awards are a joint effort of the Government Statistics Section (GSS), the Survey Research Methods Section (SRMS), and the Social Statistics Section (SSS). As such, students in all three sections submit papers to compete for the five joint awards. The student papers are judged and the best are offered the opportunity to present in a special topic-contributed session at 2018 JSM. The five awardees will be receiving a cash award of $1,100 this year to help their participation in the JSM held in Vancouver, Canada.
This year we had 23 paper submissions judged by an awards committee, including Program Chair-Elects of the three sections: Jeffrey M. Gonzalez (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics) for GSS, Stephanie Ewert Galvin (U.S. Census Bureau) for SSS, and Asaph Young Chun (U.S. Census Bureau) for SRMS.
We thank the committee for making this joint award such a success. Congratulations to the five awardees and their research advisors. The 2018 awardees are listed below and will be presenting their papers in a TC session: Monday, July 30, 2:00 PM-3:50 PM, “Best Student Papers Awarded by the ASA Consortium of GSS/SSS/SRMS.” They will be honored by receiving a certificate of awards as part of this special session.
We invite the Section members to attend the aforementioned TC session, congratulating the awardees’ scholarly accomplishments and wishing for their emerging leadership in social statistics.
Student papers will be presented in a session co-sponsored by the Government Statistics Section, Social Statistics Section, and Survey Research Methods Section on Monday, 7/30/2018, from 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM.
Luis Campos, Harvard University “Bayesian Model-Assisted Estimation for Functional Data in Survey Sampling” (with Luke Miratrix, Harvard University)
Bikram Karmakar, University of Pennsylvania “Constructing Independent Evidence from Regression and Instrumental Variables with an Application to the Effect of Violent Conflict on Altruism and Risk Preference” (with Dylan Small, University of Pennsylvania)
Jacqueline Mauro, Carnegie Mellon University “Nonparametric Estimation of Continuous Instrumental Variables Functionals, with an Application to Reducing Recidivism” (with Edward Kennedy, Daniel Nagin, Carnegie Mellon University)
Brendan McVeigh, Carnegie Mellon University “Practical Bayesian Inference for Record Linkage” (with Jared Murray, University of Texas at Austin)
Christina Maria Tripp, Vanderbilt University “A Classical Regression Framework for Mediation Analysis with Applications to Social Psychology” (with Jeffrey Blume, Vanderbilt University)
SSS JSM 2018 sessions & roundtables
Memorial Session:
Remembering Stephen E. Fienberg - Sun, 7/29/2018, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM
Invited Sessions:
(Invited sessions with SSS as a primary sponsor are bold-faced; other select sessions are those cosponsored by SSS.)
Transparency, Reproducibility and Replicability in Work with Social and Economic Data - Sun, 7/29/2018, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM
Strategic Planning and Vision Building for the Statistics Profession: Are Existing Data Bases Underutilized? - Sun, 7/29/2018, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: The Future of Statistics and the Public - Sun, 7/29/2018, 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM
Seeing the world as a missing data problem: Celebrating 40 years of multiple imputation - Mon, 7/30/2018, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM
Will administrative data save government surveys? - Tue, 7/31/2018, 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Improving Survey Data Quality with Machine Learning Techniques - Tue, 7/31/2018, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM
Causal Inference Within Reach: Pragmatic approaches to model construction and validation - Wed, 8/1/2018, 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Mechanisms of interference: new strategies for identification and estimation - Wed, 8/1/2018, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM
Statistical inference for precision medicine and subgroup analysis - Thu, 8/2/2018, 8:30 AM - 10:20 AM
Causal inference meets statistical learning with complex data - Thu, 8/2/2018, 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Data Science for Social Good - Thu, 8/2/2018, 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Relaxing No Interference Assumptions in Clustered Randomized Trials - Thu, 8/2/2018, 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Invited ePoster Session:
A Statistical Smörgåsbord - Sun, 7/29/2018, 8:30 PM - 10:30 PM
SSS Poster Presentations:
Contributed Traditional Poster Presentations – Tue, 7/31/2018, 2:00 PM – 3:50 PM
Contributed SPEED for Oral Introductory Presentation: Predictive Analytics with Social/Behavioral Science Applications: Spatial Modeling, Education Assessment, Population Behavior, and the Use of Multiple Data Sources — Wed, 8/1/2018, 8:30 AM – 10:20 AM
Contributed SPEED for Electronic Poster Presentation : Predictive Analytics with Social/Behavioral Science Applications: Spatial Modeling, Education Assessment, Population Behavior, and the Use of Multiple Data Sources — Wed, 8/1/2018, 10:30 AM – 11:15 AM
Topic Contributed Sessions:
Novel Population Model to Project the Health Impact of the Use of Tobacco Products in the United States - Sun, 7/29/2018, 4:00 PM - 5:50 PM
#LeadwithStatistics in the social sciences - Mon, 7/30/2018, 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Constructing profiles of local communities - Mon, 7/30/2018, 10:30 AM - 12:20 PM
Linked Data Visualizations, Machine Learning and Evidence-Based Policy Making - Tue, 7/31/2018, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM
Probabilistic record linkage: Better assumptions, scalable inference, and accounting for uncertainty - Wed, 8/1/2018, 8:30 AM - 10:20 AM
Recent Advances in Network Data Inference - Thu, 8/2/2018, 8:30 AM - 10:20 AM
Asaph Young Chun
SSS is excited to host its inaugural poster competition at the 2018 JSM, recognizing the best posters presented in the SPEED ePoster as well as the traditional SSS poster session. The SPEED ePoster format includes a five-minute introductory oral presentation by each poster presenter during a 110 minute session, which is then followed by an electronic and interactive poster presentation in a separate 45 minute session. SPEED talks have become increasingly popular in the past few years of JSM programs, stimulating more interaction among speakers and attendees.
Between these two formats, the Section will have a total of 23 poster presentations that will be competing for a few awards, each of which comes with an award of $250 for the best poster presentation. We have recruited several judges who will evaluate each poster presentation according to the scoring rubrics and criteria of best practices. Many thanks to the judges and Stephanie Galvin, Program Chair-Elect, who will be overseeing the on-site poster competition as scheduled below:
- Traditional Poster: Tuesday 7/31/2018, 2:00 PM - 3:50 PM.
- SPEED ePoster: Predictive Analytics with Social/Behavioral Science
Applications: Spatial Modeling, Education Assessment, Population Behavior, and the Use of Multiple Data Sources
- Oral presentation: Wednesday 8/1/2018, 8:30 AM - 10:20 AM
- Electronic presentation Wednesday 8/1/2018, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Judges will rate the content (e.g., technical accuracy and potential impact) as well as the quality of the presentation itself (e.g., clarity, visual quality). As a section, we will recognize judges’ contribution with a certificate of appreciation and a round of applause at the SSS annual business meeting.
Poster presenters in traditional or SPEED formats are strongly encouraged to prepare the most outstanding posters and deliver the highly articulating presentation ever in your talks! Poster presenters are all encouraged to attend the SSS Annual Business Meeting on Tuesday, 7/31, 5:30 pm.
We would like to invite SSS members to attend the inaugural poster competition of SSS and offer their support and encouragement.
sss 2019 eXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
We are pleased to announce the new officers of SSS joining the 2019 SSS Executive Committee. We are grateful to all who ran for election.
Renwick, Trudi Jane - Chair
Beatty, Paul C. - Past-Chair
O'Brien, Eileen - Chair - Elect
Eckman, Stephanie - Secretary / Treasurer
Galvin, Stephanie – Program Chair
Kirchner, Antje – Program Chair Elect
Fox, Liana – Publications Officer
Finamore, John - Social Statistics Section Representative
Notz, William I. - Council of Sections Governing Board Vice Chair
Peterson, Rick G. - Staff Liaison
sss 2018 eXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Beatty, Paul - Chair
Day, Jennifer Cheeseman - Past Chair
Renwick, Trudi Jane - Chair-Elect
Eckman, Stephanie - Secretary / Treasurer
Chun, Asaph Young - Program Chair
Galvin, Stephanie - Program Chair-Elect
Earp, Morgan - Publications Officer
Harris-Kojetin, Brian A. - Social Statistics Section Representative
Notz, William I. - Council of Sections Governing Board Vice Chair
Peterson, Rick G. - Staff Liaison
Please find more information at:
http://ww2.amstat.org/sections/officers.cfm?txtComm=SSOC
Contact Us:
Morgan S. Earp
SSS 2017-2018 Publications Officer
earp.morgan@bls.gov
(202)691-7387