Submit a Proposal

The objective of this theme is to help conference participants develop skills and perspectives that increase their potential for organizational impact as managers, leaders, mentors, and strategists. Presentations will enable participants to return to their jobs with new ideas, techniques, and strategies for improving their ability to assume leadership roles, develop and advance their careers, and assist others in doing the same. Potential topics include the following:

• Organizational impact and influence
• Building infrastructure
• Team building and strategy
• Diversity and inclusion
• Leadership and management
• Mentoring
• Career development and advancement
• Ethics in statistical practice

The objective of this theme is to provide attendees with practical knowledge about initiation of new projects, impact of study design and sampling, importance of data collection and data management, data engineering, and related challenges for structured and unstructured data. Presentations will feature information relevant to a broad range of applied statisticians working in diverse settings. Potential topics include the following:

• Experimental, clinical trial, observational, or survey research study design
• Sampling methodology
• Statistical analysis plans and case report forms
• Data management
• Data engineering
• Educating others about study design and data

Note: For submissions with this theme, please indicate whether your presentation is targeted to an audience with little exposure to the topic (introductory) or assumes a base level of knowledge (intermediate).

The objective of this theme is to provide attendees with practical knowledge about modeling and analyzing data of various forms through the application of state-of-the-art statistical or machine learning methods. Presentation methods should use illustrative data analysis examples and may focus on a variety of data types from varied applied settings. Presentations will feature information relevant to a broad range of applied statisticians working in diverse settings. Potential topics include the following:

• Modeling
• Inferential and hypothesis testing
• Estimation
• Predictive analytics
• Data visualizations
• New packages or procedures
• Implementing reproducible methods
• Analytics, big data, and unstructured data analytic methods
• Machine learning
• Evidence-guided statistical practice

Note: For submissions with this theme, please indicate whether your presentation is targeted to an audience with little exposure to the topic (introductory) or assumes a base level of knowledge (intermediate).

The objective of this theme is to help conference participants develop skills that will improve their written and verbal communication of both scientific and nonscientific information, thus enabling them to increase their impact as strategic, consultative, and collaborative statisticians. Potential topics include the following:

• Foundations of listening and communication skills across the statistical consultation project
• Understanding your audience
• Presenting statistical results to nonstatisticians
• Graphical presentation strategies
• Writing and reviewing manuscript submissions
• Tips and tricks for successful grant writing
• Writing white papers for industry
• Speaking to the media
• Educational efforts in communication
• Communication for consulting and collaboration

When designing your proposal, bear in mind your target audience includes conference participants who are looking to receive immediate practical value from your course presentation and materials.

Each proposal submission must include the following:

• Course Type (full-day short course, half-day short course, or two-hour tutorial)
• Course Title
• Course Description
  • Outline and Objectives: Course abstract, outline, scope, objectives, intended level, and any prerequisites
  • Instructor Qualifications: Qualifications must demonstrate expertise in the course topic and may include education; special training or study; work experience; or previous papers, presentations, or courses on the topic
  • Relevance to Conference Goals: A brief discussion about how the course will enable participants to immediately achieve the conference goals (as follows):
    • Learn statistical methods or programming techniques that apply to their job as applied statisticians
    • Better communicate and collaborate with their clients and customers
    • Have a positive effect on their organization or enhance their professional development
• Software Packages to Be Used
  • Course proposals and abstracts must note software packages that will be used during the course.
• Instructor Name(s) and Affiliation(s)

Note that any use or focus on software for courses should only be to highlight the statistical application or technique, and not to promote or sell software. Specifically:

(1) Proposed courses that focus on teaching statistical topics should be developed so the knowledge learned can be applied using a variety of software packages and textbooks. Participants in the course should not have to purchase any software or other products to participate. In addition, although participants may have to purchase software to apply the technique outside the course, they should not have to purchase the specific software used by the course instructor for illustrative purposes. Specific software packages may be used to illustrate course concepts and, if possible, the instructor should inform the course students of alternative software packages that can be used.

(2) Proposals and abstracts for courses teaching statistical programming techniques must clearly specify that programming, not methodology, is the focus of the course. They must also state what software packages will be used during the course and whether these packages are commercial or open source. If the packages are commercial in nature, the proposals and abstracts must indicate whether the participants will be provided with access to a working version of the software during the course.

If these criteria are not met, please consider submitting your topic as a Practical Computing Demonstration. Email meetings@amstat.org for more information.