Conference: Theory and Foundations of Statistics in the Era of Big Data

The Department of Statistics at Florida State University (FSU) will host a three-day conference titled "Theory and Foundations of Statistics in the Era of Big Data" in Tallahassee, Florida, from April 19 to 21, 2024. The main objective of the conference is to bring together a global community of statisticians and data scientists to chart the state-of-the-art, challenges, and the future trajectory of contemporary statistical foundations, theory, and practice. The format of the conference includes three plenary sessions, six invited sessions showcasing current senior leaders in the field who have made foundational contributions to statistics, two special invited sessions for early-career researchers, a poster session for graduate students, and a banquet talk by a leading expert. The special invited sessions and poster session will provide a unique opportunity for early-career researchers and graduate students not only to showcase their research work but also to benefit from in-depth intellectual interactions with leaders in the field in a small conference setting. The main objective of the conference is to bring together present-day statistics and science innovators and senior leaders with emerging young researchers to identify, discuss, and decipher solutions to these foundational issues and challenges faced by modern-day statistics and data science. Providing support for junior researchers and graduate students who do not have access to other sources of funding to attend this important and timely gathering of researchers working on the foundational aspects of statistical sciences is also key to maintaining the current leadership of U.S. institutions in this field. It is extremely timely to have such an event to stimulate and comprehend the major contemporary challenges in the foundation, theory, and implementation of the field that is currently playing such an important role in every sphere of social media, economic security, public health, and beyond. This conference will be in partnership with the International Indian Statistical Association (IISA) and co-sponsored by the American Statistical Association (ASA), the National Institute of Statistical Science (NISS), and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS). The conference website is https://sites.google.com/view/theory-and-foundations-of-stat/ This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.