The Section on Statistics and the Environment (ENVR) chair, Petrutza Caragea, plans for a productive 2013, as it is the year of worldwide celebration and recognition of the contributions of statistics. Visit the International Year of Statistics website for information about how statistics improves lives. The site also features the work of statisticians and highlights careers in statistical science.

To start the year, the winners of the 2012 JSM Student Paper Award competition are the following:

First Place – Stefano Castruccio of The University of Chicago for “Global Space-Time Models for Climate Ensembles”

Second Place (tie) – Libo Sun of Colorado State University for “Penalized Importance Sampling for Parameter Estimation in Stochastic Differential Equations in Two Chronic Wasting Disease Epidemics” and Stacey Alexeeff of Harvard University for “Bias Analysis for the Use of Spatially Predicted Air Pollution Exposures in Linear Models of Air Pollution Health Effects”

The section seeks nominations for the 2013 ENVR Distinguished Achievement Medal and 2013 ENVR Young Investigator Award. Both are given in recognition of outstanding contributions to the development of methods, issues, concepts, applications, and initiatives in environmental statistics.

To be eligible for a distinguished achievement medal, nominees must have made distinguished contributions to environmental statistics; joined ENVR at least three years prior to June 1, 2013; and not have received the award in a previous year.

The young investigator award is meant to encourage and recognize buy ativan drug younger members of the environmental statistics community.

To nominate, send a clear statement for which of the two awards the nominee should be considered. If the young investigator award, submit the birth date of the nominee. The committee will use the “Jonathanian” method of calculating the nominee’s age.

Nominations for both awards must be submitted electronically as a PDF (preferred) or Word document to Marcia Gumpertz at gumpertz@ncsu.edu by March 30.

Along with sponsoring awards, the section is also sponsoring five invited sessions at this year’s JSM in Montréal. Before JSM, however, there is Spatial Statistics 2013: Revealing Intricacies in Spatial and Spatio-Temporal Data with Statistics. This conference will take place June 4–7 in Columbus, Ohio. See the conference website for more information.

Also, the 23rd Annual Conference of the International Environmetrics Society will take place in Anchorage, Alaska, from June 10–14. The theme of the meeting is “Quantitative Methods, Applications, and Issues in Natural Resources: Assessment, Regulation, Development, Use, and Conservation.” See the conference website for more information. Proposals for invited sessions may be submitted to Don Stevens at dtstevens@mtaonline.net.

To provide ENVR members with better access to information, Section Publications Officer Kate Calder is setting up an ENVR microsite that will be hosted by the ASA Community. For the latest news and information, visit the ASA Community and log in to the ENVR section.