The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) presents Statistics Serving Society, a series of forums to honor the memory of Professor Ingram Olkin. Each forum focuses on a current societal issue that might benefit from new or renewed attention from the statistical community. The S3 Forums aim to bring the latest innovations in statistical methodology and data science into new research and public policy collaborations, working to accelerate the development of innovative approaches that impact societal problems. As the Forum will be the first time a particular group of experts will be gathered together to consider an issue, new energy and synergy is expected to produce a flurry of new ideas and approaches.
Goals for the S3 Forums include:
- Providing statisticians with an understanding of the societal problems and stimulating their interest in working on related statistical issues.
- Developing an agenda of statistical action items that are needed to better inform public policy and to generate reliable evidence that can be used to mitigate the problem. For example, action items might focus on data availability, data collection methods, causal inference, data science, designed and natural experiments, quality control, trend assessments, and the evaluation of preventative and restorative initiatives.
- Leading to new collaborations among statisticians and those working to understand and mitigate the problem.
- Leading to funded grant proposals that works to bring the detailed action items to life.
S3 Forums are intended to be participatory. In every forum, all participants will have a role such as discussant, moderator, recorder or note taker. There will be discussion time at each session and roundtable discussions at the end of each day, and a final time before the forum closes for reporting, syntheses, and writing.
S3 Forum Coverage & Materials
Police Use of Force
June 4, 2021 - News:"Ingram Olkin Forum Examines Analyses of Data Related to Police Use of Force" (Program)
The Opioid Crisis
Postponed - more event information coming soon!
COVID and the Schools: Modeling Openings, Closings, and Learning Loss
December 16, 2020 - News: "Ingram Olkin Forum Focuses on Data and Models for Opening and Closing Schools and Learning Loss" (Program)
Algorithmic Fairness and Social Justice
September 25, 2020 - News: "Insights Shared Regarding Algorithmic Fairness in Social Contexts" (Program)
Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruptions
- Day Seven: Adaptive Designs: Sample Size Recalculation (Date to be announced!)
- Day Six: News: "Ingram Olkin Forum Deliberates Bayes and Frequentist Approaches to Rescuing Disrupted Trials" (April 27, 2021) (Program)
- Day Five: News: "Ingram Olkin Forum Explores Methods to Cope with Information Loss and the Use of Auxiliary Sources of Data" (March 23, 2021) (Program)
- Day Four: News: "Guidance Provided on the Role of Randomization Tests During Day 4 of Ingram Olkin Forum Series on Unplanned Disruptions" (September 15, 2020) (Program)
- Day Three: News: "Ingram Olkin Forum Series Investigates the Role of Estimands and Missing Data" (September 1, 2020) (Program)
- Register your Interest in Participating in Unplanned Clinical Trial Disruption Days 3-6
- Day Two: News: "Day Two of Ingram Olkin Forum Reveals New Statistical Challenges for Mediating Disrupted Trials", (July 28, 2020) (Program)
- Day One: News: "Ingram Olkin Forum Features Examples/Advice Regarding Unplanned Disruptions of Clinical Trials", (July 21, 2020) (Program)
Gun Violence - The Statistical Issues
June, 2019 - News : "Statisticians Focus on Data Related to Gun Violence at Inaugural Ingram Olkin Forum", (Program)
White Paper: "A Call for Statisticians to Engage in Gun Violence Research" (Ridgeway, Greg, Rosenberger, James and Xue, Lingzhou - October, 2020)
Ingram Olkin Fund Committee
Nancy Flournoy (Chair),
David L. Banks,
Betsy Becker,
Michael Brundage,
Megan Glenn,
Tim Hesterberg,
Claire Kelling,
James Rosenberger,
Jerry Sacks,
Christopher Schmid,
Lingzhou Xue