Frontiers in Statistics, Epidemiology and the Environment

With the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak at the beginning of year 2020, it is even more evident that human, animal and ecosystem health equilibrium disruptions can occur as a consequence of several interacting factors including  poor population lifestyles enhancing negative health pre-conditions; deforestation and removal of many animal species habitats as a consequence or urban and agricultural areas expansion; biodiversity decrease as a result of climate change and land use change; wildlife animals consumption and illegal trade easing animal viruses spillover onto humans; water scarcity and water quality degradation concomitant with poor sanitary conditions triggering water-borne diseases; poor air quality conditions enhancing mortality rate on more vulnerable population groups. These complex causal-effect interactions need to be unveiled, understood, quantified and modeled, in order to improve preparedness to overcome the huge social and economic impacts of infectious diseases in the future. Appropriate statistical methods and data science tools including machine learning methods, need to be made accessible to a wider scientific community in other areas, lying on the frontier between statistics, epidemiology and environmental sciences. In this conference, a highly qualified group of experts will attempt to bridge this gap, exposing the need to use appropriate data analysis and modelling tools to quantify the several causal-effect interactions that might alter human, animal and ecosystem health. The aim of the conference is to provide a space for networking among specialists in these fields and to open opportunities for young researches to understand the value of cross-disciplinary research in order to solve the most pressing problems of our society. Welcome to the Frontiers in Statistics, Epidemiology and the Environment conference!

Organizing Committee

This conference is being organized by the TIES Board members.

Keynote Speakers

• Bo Li (Department of Statistics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)
• Huikyo Lee (NASA JPL, USA)
• Elaine Nsoesie (School of Public Health, Boston University, USA)

Most recent TIES Award Winners

• Andrew Zammit-Mangion: Winner of the Abdel El-Shaarawi Early Investigator Award 2020 (University of Wollongong, Australia)
• Philip A. White: Winner of the Wiley-TIES 2019 Best paper award (Brigham Young University, USA)

Important dates:

TIES membership enrolment: Always open

Conference registration: 15 October – 27 November 2020

Conference dates: 2 – 4 December 2020

Conference fees and registration

Admission to the conference will be granted after you pay the 2020 TIES membership fee. Once your TIES registration is confirmed you will be able to register in the conference site. Please go to http://www.environmetrics.org/join.html for more information on how to become a TIES member.

For conference registration click here. Go to Details and register in the event. Please note that you do not have to pay anything at this step.

Best Student Presentation Award

Students will be competing for the TIES-Wiley Best Student Presentation Award.

Detailed program is available here

General program

The general program is as follows:

Day 1 (Wednesday Dec 02): 10:00 am – 02:20 pm*:

·        10:00 am – 10:10 am: Welcome address by Lelys Bravo (TIES President)

·        10:10 am – 10:50 am: Keynote speech: Elaine Nsoesie (Boston University, USA)

·        10:50 am – 12:30 am: Session 1: Challenges in Modeling COVID-19 related issues

·        12:30 am – 01:50 pm: Session 2: Environmental Monitoring and Change Detection

·        01:50 pm – 02:20 pm: Round Table Discussion 1: Data Science and Environmental Problems: Alexandra Schmidt (Chair), (McGill University, Canada) and Amanda Hering (Baylor University, USA)

Day 2 (Thursday Dec 03): 10:00 am – 2:10 pm*:

·        10:00 am – 10:40 am: Keynote speech: Bo Li (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA)

·        10:40 am – 12:00 pm: Session 3: Human Health and Environmental Factors

·        12:00 am – 01:00 pm: Session 4: Topological Data Analysis for Bio-surveillance

·        01:00 pm – 01:40 pm: Students’ presentations

·        01:40 pm – 02:10 pm: Round Table Discussion 2: Career path on Statistics and the Environment: Ashley Steel (Chair), (FAO, Italy)

Day 3 (Friday Dec 04): 10:00 am – 02:00 pm*:

·        10:00 am – 10:40 am: Keynote speech: Huykio Lee (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, USA)

·        10:40 am – 12:00 pm: Session 5: Water quality and Human Health

·        12:00 pm – 01:20 pm: Session 6: Modelling Physical and Ecological Changes

·        01:20 pm – 01:50 pm: Round Table Discussion 3: Challenges in Data, Models and Prediction in the COVID-19 context: Elena Naumova (Chari) (Tuft University, USA)

·        01:50 pm – 02:00 pm: Closing Remarks

*All times are CDT (US, Central Standard Time). All conference sessions will be recorded and posted for later viewing to all registered participants.

Program Details: the program details will be soon available.

Conference e-mail contact: vs2020@environmetrics.org