Eric Stephens, Chief Analytics Officer at Nashville General Hospital and Chair of the 2021 CSP Steering Committee
The 10th annual Conference on Statistical Practice (CSP) was held virtually February 17–19, 2021. Originally scheduled to be held in Nashville this year, the conference (like many others) was forced to pivot to an online-only format due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite this change, attendance was still strong at 335 attendees and the content was as practical and enlightening as ever.
By nature, CSP concentrates on the element of application, so the primary goal of the conference is less about theory and more about helping statistical practitioners develop themselves and their skill sets to be more effective in their respective roles. This year’s conference consisted of 20 concurrent sessions and three poster sessions, as well as a variety of short courses and tutorials designed to give participants hands-on experience in a particular area. Topics ranged from time series to anomaly detection, from missing data to machine learning, and from collaborative grant writing to challenges in cross-disciplinary collaboration. Of particular note, ASA Executive Director Ron Wasserstein, along with Nicole Lazar of Penn State, presented a fascinating and practical session focusing on the challenges and opportunities of a post p < 0.05 world. Overall, the conference program addressed many of the myriad issues facing today’s applied statistician.
To better reflect the needs of CSP attendees and help ensure a variety of topics were presented, the four conference themes were revised this year to include 1) Career, Professional, and Leadership Development; 2) Study Design and Data Management; 3) Implementation and Analysis; and 4) Effective Communication. One of the aspects that differentiates CSP from other ASA conferences is the concentration on some of the so-called “soft”—yet highly important—skills, so this theme revision was designed to help reinforce that concentration and offer attendees practical information and tips for becoming better communicators and collaborators.
It should come as no surprise that COVID was a major topic at this year’s conference. One event that has become a standard component of CSP in recent years is the ethics panel. This year’s panel was moderated by 2021 CSP Steering Committee Vice Chair David Corliss and focused on organizational needs and data and analytics issues resulting from the pandemic. One of the participants in that panel, David Parker of the University of Alaska at Anchorage (UAA), also delivered the conference’s keynote address.
Parker, who is the director of the UAA Division of Population Health Sciences and an applied computational epidemiologist, spoke about the considerations for statisticians and methodologists to be able to adapt quickly during a pandemic so they can provide the best data rapidly and ultimately help save lives.
CSP is not all serious business, however. Each year, the conference features a social event at the end of the first day. Had we been in Nashville as planned, this likely would have involved heading downtown to check out the honky-tonks, eat some hot chicken, and dodge all the bachelorette parties! In lieu of this, this year’s conference featured Thursday Night Trivia, during which several teams attempted to answer a series of trivia questions about pop culture, history, sports, and (of course) statistics.
Also, as with most conferences, the ability to network with fellow attendees is a major reason people attend CSP. This year, a series of more than 20 virtual networking breakout rooms were set up at various points during the conference, allowing smaller groups of people to get together and chat about either a pre-determined topic or just have a general conversation.
As I reflect on the past year as chair of CSP, I must acknowledge that it was truly a team effort to make this event come together. Corliss will chair the 2022 conference, so make your plans now to attend CSP 2022 next February.
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