The Section on Bayesian Statistical Science will sponsor five invited sessions, seven topic-contributed sessions, 15 contributed sessions, five P.M. roundtables, and three Continuing Education courses during this year’s Joint Statistical Meetings in San Diego, California. The section also has its annual business meeting/mixer&emdash;open to all&emdash;planned, at which the five student travel award winners will be announced.

Continuing Education Courses

• Introduction to Bayesian Methods and Software for Data Analysis, taught by Bradley P. Carlin of the University of Minnesota and Laura A. Hatfield of Harvard Medical School
• Bayesian Time Series Analysis and Forecasting: Models and Methods, taught by Raquel Prado of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Mike West of Duke University
• Bayesian Clinical Trials, taught by Scott Berry and Kert Viele of Berry Consultants

Invited Sessions

• Recent Advances in Markov Chain Monte Carlo, organized by Jingchen Liu of Columbia University
• Bayesian Spatial Temporal Modeling of Large Environmental Datasets, organized by Montserrat Fuentes of North Carolina State University
• Graphical Models: Current Developments and Future Directions, organized by Adrian Dobra of the University of Washington
• New Developments in Bayesian Nonparametrics, organized by David Dunson of Duke University
• Bayesian Longitudinal Data Analysis, organized by Lurdes Y.T. Inoue of the University of Washington

Topic-Contributed Sessions

• Bayesian Methods in Time-to-Event Data and Other Applications, organized by Sanjib Basu of Northern Illinois University
• Advances in Genomics, organized by Lynn Kuo of the University of Connecticut
• Implementing Bayesian Methods in Drug Development, organized by Fanni Natanegara of Eli Lilly and Company
• SBSS Student Paper Competition Winners, organized by Marina Vannucci of Rice University
• Bayesian Joint Modeling of Patient-Reported Outcomes and Survival Information, organized by Bradley P. Carlin of the University of Minnesota
• Bayesian Modeling: Application in Clinical Trial Design and Analysis, organized by Huyuan Yang of Millennium Pharmaceuticals
• Bayesian Methods with Applications to Health Sciences, organized by Saman Muthukumarana of the University of Manitoba

P.M. Roundtables

• Bayesian Methods in the Pharmaceutical Industry, led by Vladimir Dragalin
• Bayesian Methods in Genetic and Environmental Epidemiology, led by Bhramar Mukherjee
• Bayesian Models for High-Throughput Omics Data, led by Yuan Ji
• Bayesian Nonparametrics Methods: Practical Issues and Current Frontiers, led by David Dahl
• Issues in Adaptive Bayesian Dose-Finding Designs, led by Tom Braun

View the JSM online program for more details on the sessions.

JSM 2013

It’s time to start thinking about JSM 2013. If you have ideas for invited sessions or short courses, contact the 2013 SBSS program chair, Peter Thall at rex@mdanderson.org. Slots are limited, and most invited sessions are finalized by mid-June.

Webinars

The SBSS is enhancing its continuing education offerings to section members by launching a distance-learning program of webinars this year. Be on the lookout for email announcements as topics and speakers are scheduled. SBSS members receive a discounted registration fee. To make this a cost-effective training program, one person can register and invite their colleagues to view the webinar. For instance, if your department has a conference room with a computer, data projector, and speakerphone, register once for the webinar and as many people as can fit into the conference room can watch it. By the time you read this, the first webinar (on April 25), titled “Introduction to Bayesian Computational Methods with Applications,” will have already been presented by Joseph Ibrahim of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The second, titled “Dysfunctional Paradigms in Clinical Trials: Some Bayesian Alternatives,” will be presented by Peter Thall from the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center on June 7. Watch out for future webinars that will be advertised through the ASA newsletters and mailing lists.