Wendy Martinez, GSS Section Chair

The Government Statistics Section is sponsoring Data Challenge 2016 during the Joint Statistical Meetings in Chicago. The contest is open to anyone, including college students and professionals from the private or public sector. This contest challenges participants to analyze a government data set using statistical and visualization tools and methods. There will be two award categories: professional and student. One or more topic-contributed or poster sessions at JSM will be established for contest submissions. (Presenters are responsible for their own registration, travel, and other attendance costs.)

The data set for the GSS Data Challenge 2016 will be the Department of Transportation’s General Estimates System (GES), which is collected by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration. The GES contains a representative sample of police-reported motor vehicle crashes of all types. Contestants are free to use any or all of the data in their analysis. The data and other information (data dictionaries, manuals, etc.) can be found at this website.

Contestants must email Wendy Martinez at martinez.wendy@bls.gov expressing their interest in participating by January 4, 2016. For details, visit the GSS website.

The section also sponsors the following awards, which are typically announced at JSM:

Jeanne E. Griffith Mentoring Award, given to federal, state, or local government statisticians for efforts supporting the work and developing the careers of junior statistical staff

Wray Jackson Smith Scholarship, to reward promising young statisticians and encourage them to consider a future in government statistics

Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in federal statistics

Pat Doyle Award, given to a person who contributes to the section in a way that leaves a lasting effect on both the section and ASA

Student Paper Competition for student and post-graduate papers

Consult the GSS website for deadlines and other details.

Finally, it is time to start thinking about the JSM 2016 contributed program. We hope you will consider organizing a topic-contributed (TC) session for possible GSS sponsorship. Proposals for TC sessions must be submitted to the online system by January 14, 2016. While not required, it is a good idea to contact our GSS program chair, Morgan Earp earp.morgan@bls.gov with your idea for a TC session before you submit your proposal. The online system will be open from December 1 to February 1, 2016.