ISBA 2.1…0!

As the first fully virtual ISBA 2021 meeting is about to start, let me remind participants of the following:

On the Whova Agenda, you can see the Agenda in your local time, be sure to toggle the option. And the list of posters for each of the four poster sessions is available in the Agenda, as well as at the entrance of each poster “room” on gather.town

Reminder for session chairs

•  Please join your session via Zoom’s panelist link instead of Whova
• Please monitor Zoom’s Q&A and Zoom’s chat for questions from attendees
• Please monitor the session time and remind the speakers of their time, as the webinar will close after 3 minutes after the end of the session
• Please keep to the planned schedule for each talk in case of a missing speaker or of a speaker unable to join the Zoom platform for connection or technical reasons
  

Reminder for speakers

• Please join your session via Zoom’s panelist link instead of Whova

Reminder for the remaining 2136 attendees

• The Zoom link for a given session is available by selection this session from Whova Agenda and clicking on “Join the live stream here”
• Please type your questions using Zoom’s Q&A or Zoom’s chat, and specify which speaker’s name you would like to hear the answers from
• Please do not use Whova’s chat for questions  
• Contributed sessions are recorded and already available, while invited sessions will be recorded with permission from the speakers

two ISBA meetings in 2022

As in 2019, both the O’Bayes and BNP conferences will occur the same year, if not back-to-back as in 2019 (when they were in neighbouring Oxford and Warwick, respectively). To quote from the current Chair of the OBayes section of ISBA, my friend Gonzalo,

“the next International Workshop on Objective Bayes Methodology (O-Bayes, OBayes, O’Bayes, Ohhh Bayes,..) is scheduled for September 2022 from 7th (Wed) to 10th (Sat) and will be hosted by University of California, Santa Cruz. This will be the 14th meeting of one of the longest-running and preeminent meetings in Bayesian statistics (the 1st was in USA 1996; the last one in 2019 in UK). In this conference, we will be celebrating the 70th birthday of Luis Pericchi an extraordinary person who has been very influential in the successful development of OBayesian ideas.”

thus seeing the O’Bayes meeting taking place in North America in early Fall, followed by BNP 13 in South America a month later (and thus Spring!), quoting from Alessandra Guglielmi:

“Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the 13th World Meeting on Bayesian Nonparametrics (BNP Workshop) is postponed until 2022. The meeting is currently scheduled to take place in Puerto Varas, Chile, October 24-28, 2022.”

 

2021 Whova Meeting of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis

The website for the incoming ISBA 2021 meeting is now operational and open to all! The program is ready, as well, with short courses starting on 23 June. And the main event on 28 June, with very long days, from 5:15am till 9:30pm in (US) Eastern Time (EDT, ie EST-05:00, UTC-06:00, CET-06:00, IST-9:30, CDT-11:00, JST-13:00, AEST-14:00). The number of registered participants is currently above 1700!, which shows the positive side of having a free on-line event since everyone (with an Internet connection!) interested can participate. On the negative side, namely the limited human interactions and the challenge of staying focussed 24/5, a solution stands in creating local clusters where a group could attend together the sessions. Provided local health policies allow. I am still working on gathering at CIRM, Marseille, if the centre reopens on 27 June. And am happy to broadcast any initiative to this effect.

[o-l] ISBA 2021 [百花齊放，百家爭鳴]

As usual, when looking for our ISBA World conference, ISBA [now] 2021, many alternative realities emerge, ISBA being such a popular acronym! The actual dates for the (true and only) ISBA 2021 conference are 28 June – 02 July and the location is no longer Kunming, China, since there is a pandemic going on!!! The conference is now on-line, which forces a complete rethinking of its organisation, away from a sheer replica on Zoom of the traditional conference. And with no registration fees!! I have agreed to join other ISBA members to contribute (with limited abilities) to this switch and obviously welcome comments towards it! Having greatly learned from the earlier experience with the One World Bernoulli+IMS conference last summer, thanks to the dedication and imagination of Leif Döring!, here are some line of thought:

• Keep in mind days are 24 hours long and attention span much smaller, towards keeping the offer manageable for a fully engaged participant
• Account and take advantage of the multiple time zones available to virtual participants to stretch the schedule to cover as many participants as possible, with a potential multiplication of (plenary) talks and posters
• Avoid filling the on-line schedule with live talks but have them pre-registered, possibly with several levels of length and depth, including a one-slide two-minute version
• Exploit on-line abilities to focus solely (?) on interactions, which is the main point of conferences, meaning participants joining for a thematic session over a reasonable duration to discuss talks or posters they had attended on their own before, with a catalyst leading the show with prepared questions
• Preregister poster presentations as well, so that live poster sessions involve only questions and discussions, and group poster by theme (an attempt of mine at the earlier ISBA conferences) so that presenters and visitors can interact at the theme level rather than being stuck in an empty room with one’s poster
• Create local mirrors when people could physically (safely!) gather to attend the conference, from watching videos and poster together to engage into a local plus virtual discussion during interaction sessions. I certainly plan to hold one such session in Paris [if there and not in Eindhoven on 28 June – 02 July]
• Find ways to engage participants to fully commit to the conference (see above), for instance by preparing a “I am away at ISBA 2021” card one could post on whatever social or asocial networks one favours (but maybe not as one’s vacation email automated reply, unless the card is a few bytes…)

BAYSM 2020, Kunming, China [reposted]

The 5th Bayesian Young Statisticians Meeting, BAYSM2020, will take place in Kunming, China (June 26-27, 2020) as a satellite to the ISBA 2020 world meeting. BAYSM is the official conference of j-ISBA, the junior section of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis. It is intended for Ph.D. Students, M.S. Students, Post-Docs, Young and Junior researchers working in the field of Bayesian statistics, providing an opportunity to connect with the Bayesian community at large. Senior discussants will be present at each session, providing participants with hints, suggestions and comments to their work. Distinguished professors of the Bayesian community will also participate as keynote speakers, making an altogether exciting program.

Registration is now open (https://baysm2020.uconn.edu/registration) and will be available with an early bird discount until May 1, 2020. The event will be hosted at the Science Hall of Yunnan University (Kunming, China) right before ISBA 2020 world meeting. BAYSM 2020 will include social events, providing the opportunity to get to know other junior Bayesians.

Young researchers interested in giving a talk or presenting a poster are invited to submit an extended abstract by March 29, 2020. All the instructions for the abstract submission are reported at the page https://baysm2020.uconn.edu/call-dates

Thanks to the generous support of ISBA, a number of travel awards are available to support young researchers.

Keynote speakers:
Maria De Iorio
David Dunson
Sylvia Frühwirth-Schnatter
Xuanlong Nguyen
Amy Shi
Jessica Utts

Confirmed discussants:
Jingheng Cai
Li Ma
Fernando Quintana
Francesco Stingo
Anmin Tang
Yemao Xia

While the meeting is organized for and by junior Bayesians, attendance is open to anyone who may be interested. For more information, please visit the conference website: https://baysm2020.uconn.edu/