ISBA [officially] on drugs

Following a call in June for sponsoring a new ISBA section on biostatistics and pharmaceutical statistics, relayed by this blog, the process has now reached its natural conclusion and ISBA/BioPharm is now an official session of ISBA! It is quite straightforward to become a (founding) member, just one click away… Just to borrow from the initial call:

An important aspect of biostat and pharmaceutical statistics is the presence of strong communities in academics, industry and government agencies. We hope that the new section will play an important role in connecting folks across these different communities and giving a platform to related intiatives. The initial officers of the section are

*  Section chair: Donald A. Berry (Term: August 2012-December 2014)
*  Program chair: Telba Z. Irony (Term: July 2012-December 2013)
*  Secretary: Peter Mueller (Term: July 2012-December 2014)
*  Treasurer: Kathryn Chaloner (Term: July 2012-December 2013)

Please join now to participate in the first election this October of the new chair elect!  Lifetime memberships are $200 while annual memberships are $10. All new memberships after September 1 will be extended until Dec 31, 2013!

Note that we should pretty soon be allowed to announce a similar creation for BayesComp, the computational Bayes section of ISBA!

Biostat/Pharma is coming to ISBA [guest post]

This post is written by Julien Cornebise :

Along with Telba Irony, Peter Mueller, and Gary Rosner, I have the pleasure to be co-founding a dedicated Biostat/Pharma section of ISBA.

Its aim is to help network and federate under a common well-known “brand” the many initiatives to spread Bayesian methods and ideas in Biostats and Pharmacological stats: for example workshops, short courses, continuing education, sessions within larger conferences, etc.

We also want to help bridge academic and industry in this regard: there are plenty of people on both sides with excellent ideas and stimulating problems, and we think that such an ISBA’s section could help connecting them.

You can already sign the opening petition: we aim to have this section open by the end of the summer. Besides, I will be in ISBA 2012 in Kyoto next week: if you have questions, suggestions, or existing initiatives that could benefit from this branding, I will be glad to meet with yoi!

Post-scriptum: to sign the opening petition, you need to already be or become an ISBA member (50 USD, much worth it!)

Bayesian job in Cambridge

Here is an email that could appeal to some readers:

Job in Cambridge MRC-BSU – Bayesian statistician
Career development fellow
MRC Biostatistics Unit, Cambridge

We are offering an exciting opportunity to work on Bayesian models for infectious disease dynamics. A statistician is required to contribute to a programme of research to develop inferential approaches to estimation and prediction of epidemic evolution when relevant information, possibly from diverse sources, arrives at regular intervals, and, likely, in real time. Examples include the monitoring and prediction of long standing epidemics such as HIV, as well as new emerging epidemics (e.g. Swine Flu). Challenges include the need to synthesise heterogeneous and biased information to produce timely updates of epidemic evolution. You will have a PhD in statistics, or a relevant discipline; computing experience, both of statistical packages (e.g. R) and programming languages (e.g. C, C++); and experience of Bayesian statistics. Experience of Bayesian computation (e.g. MCMC) and of Bayesian inference for disease transmission would be advantageous. You must have good communication skills and be able to contribute substantially to writing scientific papers. Starting salary will be in the range of £26,022 – £28,764 per annum.

Applications are handled by the RCUK Shared Services Centre; to apply please visit our job board to view the full job description and person requirements and complete an online application quoting reference IRC18709. If you are unable to apply online please contact us on 01793 867003.

Closing date: 11th May 2011 Interview date: 25th May 2011

Postdoc position at Imperial

I received this email about a fairly exciting postdoc position with Sylvia Richardson  (watch out for the short deadline!):

Applications are invited for a Research Fellow in Statistics to join the Biostatistics research group within the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the St Mary’s campus. The department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics is based within the newly created School of Public Health. The post holder will carry out leading edge research in statistical methodology related to the analysis of high order interactions, with applications in epidemiology, as part of a collaborative research study funded by the French Institute for Medical Research. You will work under the supervision of Professor Sylvia Richardson to develop new methods and implement them to carry out substantive analyses of patterns of interactions in a large epidemiological data base.

Applicants should hold a PhD or equivalent in Statistics or a related quantitative subject. Proven experience of programming in C++ and R, regression models and some knowledge of Bayesian model building are required. Experience in modelling and developing computational algorithms and experience of data analysis using modern statistical modelling techniques would be an advantage. Applicants should be motivated, well organised and able to work effectively as part of a team. This full time post is for a fixed-term of 18 months. For informal enquiries please contact Sylvia Richardson (sylvia.richardson [à] imperial.ac.uk).

Committed to equality and valuing diversity.  We are also an Athena Silver SWAN Award winner and a Stonewall Diversity Champion. The deadline for full consideration is the 17th February 2010. Apply online. Please quote post reference: SM007-10