1. Biostat 245 Student Seminar Winter 2006 Announcements Robert Weiss http://rem.ph.ucla.edu/~rob/ seminar/index.html

2. Wednesday Seminars Two seminars first week Wed Jan 11, 3:30 Nat Schenker, NCHS 23-105 Thursday Jan 12 Don Rubin, Harvard, 4-5 in 53-105 (note change in room, time and day of week). –Correct time and room here. Wednesday Coffee & Cookies in Biostat library. Introduce yourself to speakers, faculty, students.

3. Wednesday Seminars 2 All Wednesdays in 23-105 –Rubin in 13-105 –Monday in 51-279 as usual Currently 7 Wednesday talks. Currently not on Jan 18, Feb 22, Mar 15 Subject to change as always.

4. Visitors for Students to meet with Nat Schenker will talk informally to students about statistical careers. Dr. Schenker has worked at the Census Bureau, NCHS and UCLA Biostat. Biostat library, 11:00—11:50, Jan 11. Steve Dahlberg of Amgen will talk to students informally before the seminar about careers at Amgen. Mar 8, time TBA, place TBA.

5. Attendance Attendance is required. Attendance will be taken, but for the most part this is on the honor system. If you must miss a seminar, then you are required to make it up with another seminar. Send me the talk title, speaker and abstract, and a short paragraph (ie 4 sentences) about what you learned. You are required to attend one outside seminar this quarter. It may be statistical or non-statistical. Send me the talk title, speaker and author, and a paragraph about what you learned. Email me information about outside/makeup seminar. Do it early in quarter. If attending conference let me know.

6. Why? Broaden one’s horizons –Modern statistical language spoken in seminars, not in courses. –Course work is established (fully mined out) material, seminars present uncharted land. –Material presented not available from course work. –Be aware of what is going on in the field –Information about other departments, locations, universities. –Stretch required – not pre-digested – important. –Do I understand every seminar? No. Get ideas for your own research –Possible dissertation topics; avoid already completed topics! –Solutions you need to problems you didn’t know you had! –Problems presented for which you may have a solution! Shared experience – faculty and students.

7. Why not? Learn from –Content of speaker's talk –The discussion/questions asked –Presentation quality (both good and bad). Networking: –Meet speakers including some famous statisticians –Build network of colleagues –Job contacts –Join the "invisible college“: personal connections can be as useful as what you know and what you do Learn about –Range of activities in the statistics profession –Current trends in statistics –Potentially useful methods/models for collaborative work

8. Talks around campus A number of statistical job (Psych, Medicine, Biostat) talks going on. Decide if you think the talks are good or bad and how you would do better Statistics Biomathematics Human Genetics; Psychology; Sociology … Epi, Health Services, CHS, Environment Health CCH (Center for Community Health, UCLA Wilshire) RAND Business School

9. Student Seminar Monday 3 till finished. Assign all discussants today 50 minute seminar 10 minute discussion Attendance: same as regular seminar If must miss, attend make up seminar

10. Advice/Help/suggestions Do not wait until the week before. Talks take a lot of time to write and practice. New to giving seminars? You may wish to talk to –me (Rob Weiss) –advisor –employer (statistical supervisor) –other faculty member Talk about –a set of data analyses from work –a paper or two from the literature –your research

11. Winter 2006 Biostatistics Seminars Week 1WednesdayNathaniel Schenker 23-105January 11National Center for Health Statistics Hyattsville, MD ThursdayDon Rubin 53-105January 12Department of Statistics, Harvard Week 2 NONE Week 3 WednesdayCatherine Crespi 23-105January 25Department of Biostatistics UCLA Week 4 WednesdayAbdelmonem A. Afifi 23-105February 1 Biostatistics UCLA Week 5WednesdayRajesh Nandy 23-105February 8Psychology and Biostatistics UCLA Week 6WednesdayYaming Yu 23-105February 15Statistics, UCI Week 7 NONE Week 8WednesdayGreg Ridgeway 23-105March 1RAND, Santa Monica, CA Week 9WednesdaySteve Dahlberg 23-105March 8Clinical Development Biostatistics Oncology Therapeutic Area Head, Amgen, Thousand Oaks, CA