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Student Research Competition

Louisiana Chapter of the American Statistical Association

To encourage more student participation in our chapter we are developing a student research competition. We hope to make this an annual event. The inaugural Louisiana ASA Chapter Student Research Competition will be held in conjunction with our Spring 2017 meeting. Our hope is that this competition will grow and become an exciting and informative component of our chapter activities.

The Louisiana ASA Chapter Student Research Competition is open to all students currently enrolled in a statistics, biostatistics, or mathematics program at a University in Louisiana. Projects or research studies entered in the competition should involve a clear advance towards a problem in an area of statistics or biostatistics. Thorough and thoughtful analyses of real data are also acceptable. Students who enter the competition will submit an abstract, a short summary (an expanded abstract or short paper), and present a 15 minute talk at the meeting.

All participants will be acknowledged on the Chapter website and will receive an official certificate. A $250 award will be presented for the best submission/presentation. The winning participant and presentation will be announced at the Chapter meeting and featured on the Chapter website.

Spring 2017 Student Research Competition

The Spring 2017 Student Research Competition will be held, in conjunction with the Spring meeting, on Friday, 7 April 2017, on the University of Louisiana at Lafayette campus in Lafayette.

Who can participate?

The competition is open to any graduate or undergraduate student (at any level) currently enrolled to a statistics, biostatistics, or mathematics department/program at a University in Louisiana.

  • The project/research study can be a joint work with an advisor or course instructor.
  • The student must be the main researcher on the project (but see note below). Thus, we expect the student to be the first author on the paper/presentation if there are other researchers (co-authors).
  • The project/research study can be associated with a project you are working on in a course. In particular, it does not have to be part of your thesis or dissertaion research.
  • If two or more students working on the same project/research study wish to participate, they should indicate that they are entering as a team and that they share the main authorship of the paper/presentation.
  • A student can compete with more than one project/research studies.

How will the participants be recognized?

  • All entries will be acknowledged on the Chapter website and with an official certificate.
  • A $250 award will be presented for the best submission/presentation.
  • The winning presentation will be announced at the Chapter meeting and featured on the Chapter website.

How do I participate?

To participate you must:

  1. Submit an abstract;
  2. Submit a short summary (an expanded abstract or short paper) or your presentation slides (Note: 3 page limit for summary, 20 page limit for slides.); and,
  3. Present your results as a 15 minute talk at the Chapter meeting.

What is the deadline for participating?

The deadline for submissions is 12:00 midnight on Sunday 2 April 2017.

Where do I register and how do I submit my materials?

Please use this form to register for the competition.

Please submit your abstract as an email attachment to Calvin Berry. (note: 1/2 page limit for abstract.)

Please submit your summary (or slides) as an email attachment to Calvin Berry.  (Note: 3 page limit for summary, 20 page limit for slides.)

Your summary should explain what you did, why you did it, why we should be interested, and how you did it.  For example, include:

The research question(s).
The background problem and significance of your research or project.
The results or expected results of your research or project.
A indication of the methods or approach used.
A discussion of your research including the limitations, reasonableness of any assumptions made, possibilities of future work/studies that should be conducted.

Note: Do not submit both slides and a summary -- choose one or the other.
Keep in mind that if you submit slides the judges will base their decision on the content of the slides and your 15 minute presentation.
Thus, if you submit slides instead of a summary, be sure that your slides are comprehensive enough for judges to understand what you did and why you did it!