Jessica Kohlschmidt reports: The inaugural International Day of Women in Statistics and Data Science was celebrated online on October the 11th with support from Caucus for Women in Statistics (CWS), Portuguese Statistical Society (SPE), and the American Statistical Association (ASA) and 35 other statistical and data science organizations around the world. The event was truly a global celebration gathering 205 statisticians and data scientists online from 36 countries (most from USA, Portugal and UK), of whom 55% were academics, 17% students, 10% worked in non-profit organizations or other, 9% were business or industry workers, and another 9% worked in government. The event lasted 24 hours, with participation around the globe!
The scope of the sessions was fascinating and diverse, and included presentations on work-life balance, gender issues in statistics, and Covid-19 studies. The discussions were lively and provided an opportunity to share common worries and challenges faced by women in the field.
Our welcome session featured ASA President Katherine Ensor, SPE President Miguel de Carvalho, CWS President Nairanjana Dasgupta, CWS Executive Director Jessica Kohlschmidt, organizer Vanda Lourenço, and CWS Past President Tomi Mori.
The University of Otago and the New Zealand Statistical Association sponsored a session on Women in Statistics and Data Science: Career Journey, Perspectives and Opportunities in New Zealand. The speakers were Claire Cameron, Jill Haszard, Gabrielle Davie, Ella Iosua, Alice Kim and Nokuthaba Sibanda. Women in Statistics in Korea presented Gender, Statistics and COVID-19 in Korea, featuring Man-Suk Oh, Sohee Park, Tarim Lee and Eun-Kyung Lee. The International Indian Statistical Association shared Young Female Statisticians from India featuring Shuvashree Mondal, Ritika Jain, Upasana Roychowdhury and Sayantee Jana.
CWS, SPE and ASA sponsored a speed networking session to let participants get to know each other in a small group setting.
The Pak Institute of Statistical Training and Research (PISTAR) hosted an interview with Rashida Bukhari by Saleha Habibullah.
The Royal Statistical Society Young Statisticians Section organized a joint session with the Career-young Statisticians Section of the Irish Statistical Association, with speaker Professor Norma Bargary from the University of Limerick, also one of the Society’s statistical ambassadors. She gave an overview of functional data analysis and its applications to sports analytics.
Rosa M. Crujeiras presented Turning Around: On Some Statistical Methods for Circular Data, sponsored by the Spanish Statistical Society. Biomathematics & Statistics Scotland featured a talk by Paula Moraga on Geospatial Data Science for Public Health Surveillance.
CWS sponsored Shili Lin, Jessica Kohlschmidt, and Deedra Nicolet to share ideas and thoughts on how to plan a Florence Nightingale Day – a Celebration of Women in Statistics and Data Science, for middle and high school students.
CWS and SPE hosted Alexandra Schmidt, Ivette Gomes and Gerda Claeskens presenting about Diverse Statistical Approaches: Origins and Fundamentals.
The Society of Clinical Trials sponsored a session on Biostatistics Leadership in Oncology Clinical Trials, highlighting leadership and contributions made by three women biostatisticians in cancer clinical trials, representing three major cooperative groups funded by the National Cancer Institute in the US: Alliance, SWOG and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Consortium. Sumithra Mandrekar, Megan Othus, and Arzu Onar-Thomas were the presenters.
Methods for Cluster-correlated Data Analysis were discussed by Kendra Plourde, Aya Mitani and Kerrie Nelson, sponsored by CWS and the Statistical Society of Canada (SSC). CWS and SSC also co-sponsored a session on Work-life Balance throughout the Academic Research Center with speakers Maya Mathur, Bei Jiang and Josee Dupuis and discussant, Sarah Lotspeich.
Nairanjana Dasgupta and her graduate student presented on The Power of r-power in a session sponsored by CWS. ISBA presented a session on this topic with Federica Zoe Ricci, Isabella Deutsch and Katie Buchhorn.
Micaela Parker, Executive Director of The Academic Data Science Alliance presented about the community and their vision for a just, equitable future.
The concluding session featured Tomi Mori, Jessica Kohlschmidt, Cynthia Bland, Dong-Yun Kim and Miguel de Carvalho with great appreciation to the sponsors, organizers, speakers and attendees.
The recordings from the talks will be made available on the event’s website idwsds.org and the CWS YouTube Channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXmdPkUqLt0tjoHJBoMH7eA). There are also greetings from people around the world as well as videos with information about various societies that were involved in IDWSDS.
The organizing committee and main sponsors, the Caucus for Women in Statistics, the Portuguese Statistical Society, and the ASA thank all contributors and supporting organizations and would like to invite future volunteers to join the 2023 organizing committee by emailing idwsds1@gmail.com.