NZSA 2010 CONFERENCE Massey University Palmerston North 29 June - 1 July

You are warmly invited to attend the 61st Annual Conference of the NZSA, to be hosted by Massey University, Palmerston North, Tuesday 29 June - Thursday 1 July 2010.

Conference Website
http://nzsa_cdl_2010.massey.ac.nz/

Themes
Papers are invited from any area of probability and statistics: please submit an abstract now! Student presentations are especially welcome. Submissions from academia and industry on all topics of statistical methodologies are welcome. The topics include, but are not limited to:

       Statistical distributions (univariate or multivariate)
       Statistical quality control
       Reliability and survival analysis
       Design of experiments

One or two sessions will be set aside for Statistics Education on the last day.

There will be a strand running through the conference celebrating the work of Professor Chin Diew Lai from Massey.

Travel Grants and Student Prizes
The NZSA has some funds available to support students at New Zealand universities travelling to the conference. There will be financial awards for the best student presentations.

Confirmed Speakers Include:
Ingram Olkin
Professor of Statistics and of Education, Stanford University

N. Balakrishnan
Professor, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

Ching-Shui Cheng,
Professor of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley

Abstract Submission
Abstracts may be submitted online in LaTeX format (template provided) to Jonathan Godfrey via the conference website. Submission by April 30th is preferable, the deadline is May 28.

Registration
Registration is now open. See the conference website for more details. Student registrations receive a 50% discount. Members of the NZSA and SSAI also receive a discount.

Conference Dinner
The conference dinner is to be held on the Wednesday evening (June 30) at the Palmerston North Convention Centre in town. The cost is $ 55 per person.

Accommodation and Travel
Delegates are asked to make their own arrangements. An extensive list of suitable accommodation providers and travel/tourism information, including a map of Palmerston North, is provided on the conference website.

Other Details
Further details, including key dates (such as early bird registration deadlines, abstract submission deadlines, etc), online registration procedures, the full programme (including the time of the New Zealand Statistical Association AGM), will all be available shortly via the conference website (http://nzsa_cdl_2010.massey.ac.nz/).

There are a number of overseas people who have expressed an interest in attending. We hope to see as many of our members in sunny Palmerston North at that time. The organising committee would ask you to pass this invitation on to any others who may be interested.

For three days in November the normally quiet seaside township of Foxton Beach became a hive of mathematical and statistical enterprise with the 3rd annual New Zealand Maths And Statistics Postgraduate conference, NZMASP, held from 23rd-26th November 2009. As in previous years, the conference was well attended (57 students enrolled from honours, masters, and doctorate degrees) and most New Zealand universities were well represented. There was a good spread of subjects with approximately 1/3 each of the talks split between pure mathematics, applied mathematics, and statistics.

Participants at November 2009 NZMASP

The student presentations were very enjoyable and the attendees gained valuable experience and an opportunity to test out and refine their talks ahead of bigger events such as the New Zealand Mathematics Colloquium. Of particular note were talks from Shannon Ezzat (University of Canterbury) who took out the best pure mathematics talk, Rachael Tappenden (University of Canterbury) who presented the best applied mathematics talk, Lyndon Walker (University of Auckland) who won the best statistics talk, and Yousaf Habib (University of Auckland) who was voted the “peoples choice” for 2009. Also, two members of the “Calcium Mafia” (their words, not mine!), Emily Harvey and Katie Sharp, from the University of Auckland were highly commended.

Lyndon Walker receiving the award for the best statistics talk at NZMASP from Jonathan Godfrey

The meeting was co-directed by Atheer Matroud and Luke Fullard of the Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University and organised by Haydn Cooper at Massey Albany, Brigid Betz-Stablein at IFS, Massey, Christopher Ball at Victoria University, Shannon Ezzat of the University of Canterbury, and Aidin Jalilzadeh of the University of Otago.

The conference organisers would like to thank the sponsors of this event for encouraging and enabling the professional development of postgraduate students throughout New Zealand. The sponsors this year were:

NZMS
NZIMA
ANZIAM
NZSA
Hoare Research Software Ltd.
Statistics New Zealand
SAS
Institute of Fundamental Sciences, Massey University
Mathematics and Statistics Department, University of Canterbury
Mathematics and Statistics Department, University of Auckland
School of Mathematics, Statistics and Operations Research, Victoria University

Participants at a talk

Student feedback received from the NZMASP conferences included:

“NZMASP was a good opportunity to network with other maths and stats postgrad students. On both a social and professional research level this was very valuable.”

“Getting to see stats, applied maths and pure maths talks gave students the opportunity to see what was being done in related disciplines. There were actually strong links between some of the work done in applied maths and stats, i.e. work in genetics and biomath/stats modelling. I think there was definitely value in having the 3 groups together.”

“NZMASP was a good opportunity for more senior postgraduate students to have the experience of chairing sessions, organising and running a conference, evaluating abstracts etc.”

Conference Dinner

We all look forward to the 2010 event. We hope this conference becomes an institution for the mathematics and statistics postgraduate students of New Zealand.

Luke Fullard