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Statistics Professor Shares in New NSF/US Census Grant

October 19, 2011

Statistics Professor Shares in New NSF/US Census Grant

Noel Cressie, statistics professor and director of Ohio State University’s Spatial Statistics and Environmental Statistics (SSES) program, will share in a five-year $2.85 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that establishes a research group at the University of Missouri and at Ohio State.

The researchers will partner to develop new data analysis and modeling methodologies to improve interpretability and usability of the American Community Survey (ACS) conducted by the Census Bureau. This annual survey provides timely information needed to plan the distribution of the more than $400 billion in federal and state funds allocated each year for community resources and services.

Survey data is used to facilitate public-health comparisons across spatial regions and evaluate the changing economic climate in cities—looking at poverty, affordable housing, and wage gaps in regional populations. It even compares high school sports participation as a function of income.

The two groups of statisticians hope to analyze and combine information in novel ways, borrowing strength across space and time; utilizing the dynamic, changing nature of population demographics.

Much of their methodology will be informed by the investigators’ previous interdisciplinary experiences in modeling environmental and epidemiological processes such as remote sensing, weather, ocean dynamics, and invasive species.

Scott Holan, associate professor of statistics; and Chris Wikle, professor of statistics, will lead Missouri’s component of the research node. Cressie will lead Ohio State’s.

Program in Spatial Statistics and Environmental Statistics: http://www.stat.osu.edu/~sses/

Website of NSF-Census Research Network Program: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503587

Website of American Community Survey: http://www.census.gov/acs/www/