Statistical Methods for Displaced and Refugee Populations and People living in Conflict Zones Panel

In JSM 2025, we held an Invited Oral Session titled "Statistical Methods for Displaced and Refugee Populations and People Living in Conflict Zones." The presentations covered topics from allocating essential services to refugees and asylum seekers to estimating mortality counts and identifying risk factors for displaced individuals. A common theme was substantial data quality challenges including missingness, measurement error, data fragmentation, and reporting lags. The analyses covered data from ongoing aggressions in Central America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. The talks provoked extensive discussion, extending one hour beyond the session. Audience members requested continuing the conversation at JSM 2026 through an Invited Panel. This panel will focus on practical challenges in analyses, data acquisition and linkage, and dissemination. Panelists include the four 2025 presenters plus two additional scholars with research experience in Africa. Chair: James Cochran (he/him) is Professor of Statistics and Mike and Kathy Mouron Endowed Chair at University of Alabama. He consults globally, established an international teaching colloquium series across 18 countries and was founding co-chair of Statistics without Borders. His accolades include ASA's Founders Award, 2015 Karl E. Peace Award for outstanding statistical contributions to society, and 2017 Waller Distinguished Teaching Career Award. He is an elected ASA Fellow. Panelists: David Banks (he/him) is a Professor of the Practice of Statistics at Duke University. His diverse research areas include adversarial risk analysis (i.e., Bayesian behavioral game theory), human rights statistics, agent-based models, forensics, and high-dimensional data analysis. His many accolades include the ASA's Founders Award, the De Groot Award, and giving the William Sealy Gosset and Deming Lectures. He is an elected ASA fellow, the IMS and the Advancement of Science. Megan Price (she/her) is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HDAG) and a Research Fellow at the Carnegie Mellon University Center for Human Rights Science. As director of HRDAG, she drives the organization's overarching strategy, leads scientific projects, and collaborates with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights and Amnesty International on several analyses of conflict-related deaths in that country. She is an elected ASA fellow. Zeina Jamaluddine (she/her) is an Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, specializing in health metrics and mortality estimation in conflict-affected populations. Her research validates tools for assessing health insecurities, quantifying inequalities in health and nutrition outcomes, and evaluating humanitarian interventions. David Corliss (he/him) is founding director of Peace-Work, an all-volunteer cooperative of statisticians and data scientists addressing poverty, education, social justice. Dr. Corliss leads a data science organization in the automotive industry while taking pro bono cases as a human rights mathematician. He is the author of Stats4Good, a monthly column which appears in Amstat News. Mulugeta Gebregziabher (he/him) is Professor and Vice Chair of Academic Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina. He collaborates globally on diverse research topics and has received honors for teaching, mentoring, research and service. He is an elected ASA fellow.