SCASA eNewsletter June 2016.pub
SCASA: SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CHAPTER OF THE AMERICAN STATISTICAL ASSOCIATION
E-Tidings Newsletter SCASA Events and News V O L U M E
5 ,
I S S U E
6
J U N E
2 0 1 6
Eyewitness Report: The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair , May 2016
By Rebecca Le, County of Riverside
The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) was held at the Phoenix Convention Center. I was impressed by the large area that was well organized with hotels and restaurants within walking distance and springtime weather. The Intel ISEF was very well managed and organized. This year, however, the ASA Special Awards in Statistics faced a challenge in that there were fewer than twenty judges who needed to review 1756 presentations. All judges were in the judge meeting room around 9:00am on Tuesday May 10 and discussed a method to make the evaluation process done quickly and effectively. By 6:00pm on Tuesday and three rounds of judging, the judges had selected 20 promising projects. Then, we got back together at 8:00am on Wednesday May 11, with fewer judges, to go through the last 20 projects to select 10 for face-to-face interviews. We all worked really hard to make sure we recognized the best presentations from a very large and excellent presentation pool. The ASA Special Awards provided cash prizes to the top three projects. This year, all three of the top projects were in the field of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. The first prize of $1500 was awarded to Jonathan Ma, from The Harker School in San Jose, California for “Genomics-Based Cancer Drug Response Prediction through the Adaptive Elastic Net”. The second prize of $1000 was awarded to Swetha Revanur, from Evergreen Valley High School, in San Jose, California, for “A Machine Learning Framework for Multi-Omics Discovery and Characterization of Gene Co-Alterations Impacting Disease.” The third prize of $500 was awarded to Joyce Xu, from Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado, for “Predictive Modeling of Optimal Cancer Therapies.” (continues on the next page…)
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VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6
Eyewitness Report: The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair , May 2016 (continues from the previous page…)
The ASA Special Awards second-place statistics winner, Swetha Revanur, also won awards in the Grand Prizes: The Dudley R Herschbach SIYSS award and the Intel Best of Category and first prize in Computation Biology and Informatics. The third-place statistics winner, Joyce Xu, also won third prize in the Grand Awards category for Computation Biology and Informatics. For more details about the 2016 ISEF, see https://student.societyforscience.org/intel-isef The Intel ISEF 2016 showed that the American Statistical Association is heading the right direction by promoting statistical practice as demonstrated by pre-college students using statistical thinking and methods in their own field of research. Below is a picture of the statistics judges taken after the final decisions were submitted.
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6
PAGE 3
Opportunity for Volunteer Statistics Judges for 2017 Intel Science and Engineering Fair By Madeline Bauer, USC (retired) The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) will be held May 14 - 19, 2017 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Over 1700 science projects will be presented by ninth through twelfth graders who earned the right to compete at the Intel ISEF 2017 by winning a top prize at a local, regional, state or national science fair. Based on previous ISEFs, judging for the ASA Special Awards in Statistics is expected to be held on Tuesday May 16 and Wednesday morning May 17. The awards will be presented by the three local chapter presidents at the award ceremony, which is expected to be held late afternoon on Thursday May 18. The Society for Science and the Public (which organizes ISEF) require that judges have a Ph.D. or equivalent in statistics or a related field, or a master’s degree in statistics or a related field with at least 6 years of experience in statistics. Graduate students and recent master’s graduates are encouraged to volunteer as judges for the AP Statistics Poster Competition and as expert visitors for the ASA DataFest! For the 2017 ISEF, judges are needed for Tuesday and/or Wednesday morning. Hopefully all of the 2014 judges will be able to judge again. Their enthusiasm and hard work was much appreciated. As those judges remember, although the judges will review over 1700 projects on Tuesday, the only opportunity to actually connect with the students face-to-face occurs during the one-hour time slot from 8 am to 9 am on Wednesday. At the last ISEF held in Los Angeles (2014), major traffic congestion interfered with statistics judges getting to the convention center in time to start the judging interviews at 8 am. (continues on the next page…)
PAGE 4
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6
Opportunity for Volunteer Statistics Judges for 2017 Intel Science and Engineering Fair (continues from the previous page…)
For 2017, in addition to needing a large number of highly-motivated returning and new statistics judges on Tuesday, we need to increase the number of statistics judges who are willing to arrive at the LA Convention Center before 7:30 am. This will allow us to increase the number of students with whom judges make face-to-face contact during interviews. Volunteer judges are encouraged to arrange their schedules to so they can participate in the Tuesday evening dinner (sponsored by the ASA) and stay in one of the ISEF hotels Tuesday evening in order to arrive early on Wednesday! In past, judges have asked for as much lead time as possible for the ISEF dates so they can arrange their teaching schedules and also to make sure their spouses will be home so they can attend the dinner and stay in town! For more information, contact Madeline Bauer at [email protected], Harold Dyck at [email protected], Heidi Gransar at [email protected], Rebecca Le at [email protected], or Luke Thelen at [email protected].
KEEP CALM AND VOLUNTEER AT THE
INTEL ISEF
PAGE 6
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6
Dr. Normalcurvesaurus, Ph.D. Presents
If you would like to submit an entry to the next issue, please contact me at [email protected]. Yours Truly, Olga Korosteleva Your Editor-in-Chief
E-Tidings Newsletter SCASA Events and News V O L U M E
5 ,
I S S U E
6
J U N E
2 0 1 6
Eyewitness Report: The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair , May 2016
By Rebecca Le, County of Riverside
The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) was held at the Phoenix Convention Center. I was impressed by the large area that was well organized with hotels and restaurants within walking distance and springtime weather. The Intel ISEF was very well managed and organized. This year, however, the ASA Special Awards in Statistics faced a challenge in that there were fewer than twenty judges who needed to review 1756 presentations. All judges were in the judge meeting room around 9:00am on Tuesday May 10 and discussed a method to make the evaluation process done quickly and effectively. By 6:00pm on Tuesday and three rounds of judging, the judges had selected 20 promising projects. Then, we got back together at 8:00am on Wednesday May 11, with fewer judges, to go through the last 20 projects to select 10 for face-to-face interviews. We all worked really hard to make sure we recognized the best presentations from a very large and excellent presentation pool. The ASA Special Awards provided cash prizes to the top three projects. This year, all three of the top projects were in the field of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. The first prize of $1500 was awarded to Jonathan Ma, from The Harker School in San Jose, California for “Genomics-Based Cancer Drug Response Prediction through the Adaptive Elastic Net”. The second prize of $1000 was awarded to Swetha Revanur, from Evergreen Valley High School, in San Jose, California, for “A Machine Learning Framework for Multi-Omics Discovery and Characterization of Gene Co-Alterations Impacting Disease.” The third prize of $500 was awarded to Joyce Xu, from Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado, for “Predictive Modeling of Optimal Cancer Therapies.” (continues on the next page…)
PAGE 2
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6
Eyewitness Report: The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair , May 2016 (continues from the previous page…)
The ASA Special Awards second-place statistics winner, Swetha Revanur, also won awards in the Grand Prizes: The Dudley R Herschbach SIYSS award and the Intel Best of Category and first prize in Computation Biology and Informatics. The third-place statistics winner, Joyce Xu, also won third prize in the Grand Awards category for Computation Biology and Informatics. For more details about the 2016 ISEF, see https://student.societyforscience.org/intel-isef The Intel ISEF 2016 showed that the American Statistical Association is heading the right direction by promoting statistical practice as demonstrated by pre-college students using statistical thinking and methods in their own field of research. Below is a picture of the statistics judges taken after the final decisions were submitted.
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6
PAGE 3
Opportunity for Volunteer Statistics Judges for 2017 Intel Science and Engineering Fair By Madeline Bauer, USC (retired) The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) will be held May 14 - 19, 2017 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Over 1700 science projects will be presented by ninth through twelfth graders who earned the right to compete at the Intel ISEF 2017 by winning a top prize at a local, regional, state or national science fair. Based on previous ISEFs, judging for the ASA Special Awards in Statistics is expected to be held on Tuesday May 16 and Wednesday morning May 17. The awards will be presented by the three local chapter presidents at the award ceremony, which is expected to be held late afternoon on Thursday May 18. The Society for Science and the Public (which organizes ISEF) require that judges have a Ph.D. or equivalent in statistics or a related field, or a master’s degree in statistics or a related field with at least 6 years of experience in statistics. Graduate students and recent master’s graduates are encouraged to volunteer as judges for the AP Statistics Poster Competition and as expert visitors for the ASA DataFest! For the 2017 ISEF, judges are needed for Tuesday and/or Wednesday morning. Hopefully all of the 2014 judges will be able to judge again. Their enthusiasm and hard work was much appreciated. As those judges remember, although the judges will review over 1700 projects on Tuesday, the only opportunity to actually connect with the students face-to-face occurs during the one-hour time slot from 8 am to 9 am on Wednesday. At the last ISEF held in Los Angeles (2014), major traffic congestion interfered with statistics judges getting to the convention center in time to start the judging interviews at 8 am. (continues on the next page…)
PAGE 4
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6
Opportunity for Volunteer Statistics Judges for 2017 Intel Science and Engineering Fair (continues from the previous page…)
For 2017, in addition to needing a large number of highly-motivated returning and new statistics judges on Tuesday, we need to increase the number of statistics judges who are willing to arrive at the LA Convention Center before 7:30 am. This will allow us to increase the number of students with whom judges make face-to-face contact during interviews. Volunteer judges are encouraged to arrange their schedules to so they can participate in the Tuesday evening dinner (sponsored by the ASA) and stay in one of the ISEF hotels Tuesday evening in order to arrive early on Wednesday! In past, judges have asked for as much lead time as possible for the ISEF dates so they can arrange their teaching schedules and also to make sure their spouses will be home so they can attend the dinner and stay in town! For more information, contact Madeline Bauer at [email protected], Harold Dyck at [email protected], Heidi Gransar at [email protected], Rebecca Le at [email protected], or Luke Thelen at [email protected].
KEEP CALM AND VOLUNTEER AT THE
INTEL ISEF
PAGE 6
VOLUME 5, ISSUE 6
Dr. Normalcurvesaurus, Ph.D. Presents
If you would like to submit an entry to the next issue, please contact me at [email protected]. Yours Truly, Olga Korosteleva Your Editor-in-Chief
