The 2006 Biostat Retreat was a rousing success by every conceivable measure. The attendance was high, the science engaging, and the setting ideal. The retreat spanned most of the weekend of October 6, 7, and 8. It boasted an appealing variety of faculty research presentations and a whiz-bang session of student posters. IslandWood's nature-conscious environment of footpaths, rustic cabins, and dining and meeting halls appeared to be met with enthusiastic approval by those in attendance, and a general feeling of camaraderie pervaded the event from beginning to end. Read on for a sense of the weekend's specific highlights…
Talent night is, of course, a big draw at every retreat. This year was no exception. Among the formidable acts on display were Thomas Lumley and Ken Rice's heart-rending duet about hippopotami (complete with slideshow!) and a student skit that took more than a couple of friendly stabs at the oft-targeted Scott Emerson—who is just as often a good sport.
Day two found the students and faculty of Biostat knuckling down to two immersive sessions of faculty presentations. That evening, the student poster session took center stage. Following that, it was time for a campfire at the Friendship Circle, a sunken fire pit that pretty much begs to be used for storytelling. Fortunately, that was no problem. After some general remarks by department chair Bruce Weir, Professor Emeritus Lloyd Fisher took the floor with recollections from his days as an active member in the Department (and a cautionary tale or two for students with their careers ahead of them). Bruce's wife Beth also treated a rapt audience to an original children's story.
The gaps between these events were largely filled with merrymaking, feasting, and island exploration. Sunday morning saw the final two faculty-presentation sessions, and after lunch people began to trickle homeward. There are, however, a couple of post-retreat details worth mentioning. Not only did students and faculty vote on the best posters this year, but students also had a chance to vote on the best faculty presentation.
Here's how it shook out!
Student-Poster Winners:
- Best Poster, as voted by first-year students—Bharat Rajan (pictured, left; "Statistical Methods for Evaluating Markers: ROC Curves and Percentile Values")
- Best Posters, as voted by all other students—Rob Schmicker (pictured, middle; "Do Time-Series Studies Provide Meaningful Health Effect Estimates for Ozone?") and Rob Wellman (pictured, right; "The Effect of Breastfeeding on CD4 Count in HIV+ African Mothers: A Marginal Structure Model")
- Best Posters, as voted by faculty—Kyle Rudser (not pictured; "Nonparametric Inference for Arbitrary Survival Functionals") and Judy Zhong (not pictured; "Odds Ratio Estimation Following the Multistage Genome-Wide Association Study")
Faculty-Presentation Winners:
- Best Presentation—Ken Rice ("Bonferroni for Bayesians")
- Runners Up—Thomas Lumley ("Two Steps Forward is One Step Back: Transitivity and Coherence in Networks of Tests") and Lurdes Inoue ("It's Time to Model!")
Staff efforts in pulling off this event were, not suprisingly, nonpareil. And a nod of special thanks goes out to Elizabeth "Betz" Halloran for stepping in at the last minute to give a faculty presentation in the time slot of a presenter who was unable to attend.