Several current and former TCRN trainees are moving on to new careers in fall 2017.   Graduate student Nicole Dalzell will be an assistant teaching professor of statistics at Wake Forest University.  Postdoc Mauricio Sadinle will be an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Washington.  Postdoc Maria De Yoreo will be a statistician at RAND Corporation.  And former graduate student and current visiting professor at CMU Jared Murray will be an assistant professor of statistics at the business school at the University of Texas at Austin.

Jerry Reiter (NCRN node at Duke) and Lars Vilhuber (NCRN node at Cornell) spoke to the Ryan Murray Commission on Evidence Based Policymaking on February 24, 2017.  They discussed the role of statistical methodologies and technology in protecting data privacy.   The Ryan Murray Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission Act of 2016 was jointly introduced by U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI), and signed into law on March 30, 2016.   The Commission is described at  https://www.cep.gov/about.html .  The announcement of the talks is at https://www.cep.gov/meetings/2017-02-24.html .

Jerry Reiter was awarded the 2016 Outstanding Postdoctoral Mentor Award at Duke University.  The award is given annually to one mentor of postdoctoral associates at Duke University.

Maria DeYoreo is the 2016 winner of the highly prestigious Savage Award in Applied Methodology for best doctoral dissertation.  Congratulations, Maria!

We are saddened to report that Dr. Larry Cox passed away on June 1, 2016.  Larry was one of the most influential researchers in statistical disclosure control, data editing, and official statistics.  He made fundamental contributions to methodology for protecting tabular data that profoundly impacted the practice of statistical agencies and inspired generations of researchers.  He was a key participant in the Duke/NISS NCRN node.  Of particular note, Larry came up with the idea of fusing methods from operations research and statistical modeling to improve how agencies do edit-imputation.  This idea led to several published papers, including recently in JASA and JBES.   His wisdom, intellect, and good nature will be sorely missed.

Jerry Reiter, PI of the Duke/NISS NCRN node, delivered a presentation on the future of data access at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on December 15, 2015.  The talk was part of the Commiissoner’s Invited Lecture Series, which brings in speakers to talk about the current and future state of topics central to the BLS mission.  The talk was titled, “Data access and data confidentiality: Where are we and where are we going?”

Beka Steorts presented her research on the use of record linkage techniques to estimate the number of deaths in the conflict in Syria.  Her talk was captured in a 3 minute video from the MIT Technology Review.  Watch the video of Beka.

Beka Steorts, formerly visiting assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University and now assistant professor at Duke University, was mentioned in the MIT Technology Review as one of “35 innovators under 35.”  The article highlights her research on record linkage and human rights.  See the article at http://www.technologyreview.com/lists/innovators-under-35/2015/humanitarian/rebecca-steorts/

Hang Kim, who finished a postdoctoral position at the Duke/NISS NCRN node in July 2015, was awarded a career development award from the Korean International Statistical Society (KISS). This is the first year of the award, which “recognizes statisticians who are in the early stages of their careers (anyone who completed highest educational degree no more than 7 years ago) and who have demonstrated outstanding productivity and the potential to make significant contributions to the field of statistics.”  Hang is now an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati.

The Atlantic has published a story describing the use of synthetic data to protect the confidentiality of data subjects’ identities and sensitive attributes.  The story quotes researchers from the Cornell, Duke/NISS, and Michigan nodes.  To see the article, visit the page

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/fake-data-privacy-census/399974/