CANSSI National Case Study Competition
The CANSSI National Case Study Competition (NCSC) took place this fall. This national competition offered Canadian students the chance to work with a real-life dataset and put their statistical knowledge to the test to make predictions. The dataset consisted of 61,880 BC Ferries sailings occurring between August 2016 and March 2018. The dataset was split into a training dataset including 80% of the sailings (49,504 sailings between August 2016 and November 2017) and a testing dataset including 20% of the sailings (12,376 sailings between November 2017 and March 2018). The task was to predict whether or not each sailing described in the testing dataset was delayed. A variety of covariates were provided for each sailing (date, time of departure, departure terminal, arrival terminal, the name of the vessel, and so on). In addition to these covariates, some weather data and traffic data was also provided. Students prepared posters and presentations detailing their work, predictions, and insights.
Five regional competitions took place across the country:
- Carleton University, Ottawa, ON
- Concordia University, Montréal, QC
- MacEwan University, Edmonton, AB
- Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC
- University of New Brunswick, NB
Students who were unable to travel to one of these locations for the regional competitions had the opportunity to participate remotely at either the Concordia or the UNB competitions.
The top two teams from each regional competition were invited to participate at the national final at Simon Fraser University on November 2.
The winners were as follows:
- 1st place: Overfit the Leaderboard (Matthew Tourond), Simon Fraser University
- 2nd place: The Carleton Kaggle Club (Andrea Pagotto, Alex Trostanovsky, and Christopher Wang), Carleton University
- 3rd place: The Statsketeers (Kimberly Kroetch, Cassie Lisitza, and Nirudika Velupillai), MacEwan University
See pictures and learn more about the competition here.
New Faces at CANSSI
We’re pleased to announce two new faces at CANSSI. Nancy Heckman of the University of British Columbia is our new associate scientific director. She’ll be helping develop some new initiatives. So stay tuned to hear more about that in the near future!
Lisa Strug of the University of Toronto is the new interim regional director for CANSSI Ontario. CANSSI Ontario is our newest regional centre whose goal is the promotion of statistical and data science research and training in the Ontario region. CANSSI Ontario is described more fully below.
Learn more about Nancy and Lisa on our website.
CANSSI Quebec
The official inauguration of CANSSI Quebec took place at Concordia University on November 21. Regional director Yogen Chaubey welcomed guests from universities around Quebec. Justin Powlowski, associate vice president (research), and Philippe Caignon, associate dean, Faculty of Arts and Science, affirmed Concordia University’s support of CANSSI. After the coffee and refreshments, talks were given by Nancy Reid, Don Estep, Christian Genest, and John Braun.
CANSSI Quebec’s goal is to work hand in hand with CANSSI in promoting statistical and data science research and training, concentrated in the Quebec region. It aims at strengthening and increasing connections with other disciplines that use statistical methodologies and highlights CANSSI as a hub for statistical and data science activities across Canada.
Learn more about CANSSI Quebec online.
CANSSI Ontario
We are pleased to announce the official launch of the Canadian Statistical Sciences Institute (CANSSI) Ontario Regional Centre at the University of Toronto.
CANSSI Ontario will support several initiatives that facilitate collaborative research in data science such as data access grants, new investigator awards, and training programs. One such CANSSI Ontario-supported training program, the Strategic Training for Advanced Genetic Epidemiology (STAGE), is a long-standing, successful, multidisciplinary research, and training program in statistical genetics and genetic epidemiology. CANSSI Ontario STAGE will be a collaboration between the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Department of Statistical Sciences in the Faculty of Arts & Science—both at the University of Toronto—with representation and participation from several other Ontario University investigators.
Employment Ads and Postdoc Ads
CANSSI maintains a list of employment opportunities at our member institutions. The list has quite a few exciting positions. Check it out here.
We also have a list of graduate and postdoctoral opportunities. You can see that list here.
To have your ad added to this list, please send the link to your ad to info@canssi.ca.
Advocating for Statistics
CANSSI aims to take a lead role in advocating for statistics research and statistician participation in multidisciplinary research. Check out our new page on white papers on these topics. If you know of a white paper that we should be linking to, please let us know at info@canssi.ca.
Deadlines
SAMSI Undergraduate Workshop Applications—December 20, 2019
RSVP for Collaborative Research Team Information Session—January 10, 2020
Collaborative Research Team Information Session—January 22, 2020
Call for CANSSI postdoctoral fellows—January 31, 2020
Call for StatLab-CANSSI-CRM postdoctoral fellows—January 31, 2020
Call for Workshop and Conference Proposals—February 15, 2020
Call for Distinguished Visitor Program—March 31, 2020
Call for Collaborative Research Team LOIs—April 30, 2020
Newsletters
Haven’t seen our newsletter lately? Make sure you don’t miss the next one. Write to info@canssi.ca to subscribe.