What's Inside this Issue:
Welcome to the Twin Cities!
Bernard Harlow, University of Minnesota
The Minneapolis-St. Paul area, collectively referred to as the Twin Cities, is renowned for its cultural and recreational opportunities and beautiful natural surroundings. We're proud that Minnesota is currently ranked as one of the healthiest and most livable states in the nation.
We have 136,900 acres of parkland and 950 lakes in just the metro area alone! And, if you love to bicycle, we have over 250 miles of bike trails along former railroad beds and around our lakes with more miles of paved bikeways than any other state. Feel free to take advantage of our new bike rental program where you can pick up and drop off a bicycle at multiple stations around the metro area.
Additionally, the Twin Cities offers a wide selection of cultural and entertainment opportunities. There are several public museums, private art galleries, music and arts festivals, historic theaters that offer drama, comedy and music, and a plethora of cuisine options suitable for even the most discerning pallet.
The Twin Cities also offer extensive opportunities to shop for many uniquely Minnesotan goods and services. Downtown Minneapolis has two million square feet of retail, one of the highest concentrations of shops in any city its size. The Nicollet Mall, just up from the conference hotel, is a wonderful place to shop, eat, and just enjoy outdoor city life. We're actually famous for our outdoor and roof-top dining which allows for great views of the city and the mighty Mississippi!
If you decide to extend your stay, Minnesota is a mecca for outdoor enthusiasts. The state is full of picturesque parks and stunning lakes- -playgrounds for those who enjoy canoeing, hiking, camping or merely sightseeing along the North Shore of Lake Superior. For example, Minnesota hosts Voyageurs National Park, the only water-based national park in the U.S., two national forests (Superior and Chippewa), 72 state parks, and 58 state forests. And of course, we relish in our Boundary Waters Canoe Area, a wilderness park that has remained unchanged since the time of the French Voyageurs.
Come and enjoy our stimulating conference and then spend some time exploring our magnificent outdoors!
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Andrew Olshan University of North Carolina |
Bernard Harlow University of Minnesota |
SER is pleased to announce a new initiative to foster the professional development of Early Stage Investigators (ESIs), defined as junior faculty in academia and early stage professionals in governmental positions or the private sector. Helping ESI's grow and meet career goals is a critical mission of SER and we as a society are well positioned to use our membership, annual meeting, and other resources to play a significant role in facilitating this effort. We are at the beginning of developing a plan for an ESI session at the upcoming annual meeting.
If you have any comments or suggestions pertaining to particular topics of great importance for our ESI's, please don't hesitate to shoot one of us an email. Stay tuned for more information as we begin to develop this important new initiative.
Andy Olshan,
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
andy_olshan@unc.edu
Bernard Harlow
University of Minnesota
harlow@umn.edu
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Julie Buring Harvard Medical School |
"SER will be holding at the Minneapolis meeting our first annual Student Workshop Reunion Reception"
SER began in 1968 as a joint effort of the Johns Hopkins, Columbia, and Harvard Schools of Public Health. As the oldest and largest organization of epidemiologists in the world, one of SER's primary objectives is to encourage and foster the professional development of students of epidemiology and young investigators. One way of meeting this objective was felt to be to provide a forum in which doctoral-level students working on theses that utilize various types of epidemiology studies, using a range of epidemiologic methods, could interact with other graduate students and senior epidemiologists. This has been accomplished by conducting annually an in-depth Student Workshop for 12 students which is funded by a National Cancer Institute Education Grant. This workshop is held the day prior to SER's annual scientific meeting in June each year. The workshop, which first took place in 1977, has been conducted continuously for over 30
"real world" and who have a variety of epidemiologic, clinical, and methodological expertise.
The Student Workshop is chaired each year by the President-Elect of SER, with a co-Chair specifically chosen by the Chair for his or her known expertise in cancer epidemiology. As part of the grant, the participants in the workshop also receive free registration for the SER meeting. Follow this link for information about the 2012 Workshop, including application instructions and the deadline.
Beginning December 1, 2011 applications for the 2012 Student Workshop will be accepted. The workshop will be held in Minneapolis, Minnesota on June 26-27, 2012. In addition, SER will be holding at the Minneapolis meeting our first annual Student Workshop Reunion Reception. This reunion will include all previous participants of the Student Workshop dating back to 1977. If you were a workshop participant - either as a student or as a faculty member - please contact Sue Bevan (sbevan@epiresearch.org) and indicate the year you participated in the workshop. Additionally, you can visit www.epiresearch.org for more reunion details.
Many of us have seen or heard about The Social Network. We have all witnessed the power of social media to affect profound change, as exemplified by recent democracy movements in the Middle East. At their best, outlets like Twitter, Facebook, and blogs represent a new, real-time way for communities to connect and share knowledge—in short, "all the cool kids are doing it." Here at SER, we are ready to harness that emerging power, and would greatly appreciate your feedback as we continue to develop our presence in social media!
Our first foray into social media has been led by the Student and Postdoctoral Committee (SER-SPC). At the @SER_SPC
Twitter account, you can find announcements of upcoming meetings (both web-based and "in person"); links to membersonly
services like the Job Board and room sharing arrangements during the Annual Meeting; and ways to connect with worldwide epidemiologists and public health groups using social media. Over the next few months, SER-SPC plans to incorporate even more resources, including links to noteworthy peer-reviewed articles, members' blogs, and opportunities to get involved with our social media initiatives. Together with the parent SER organization, we will also be setting up a Facebook page to facilitate communication among our members, share announcements about the Annual Meeting, and offer relevant content. Additionally, plans for a LinkedIn page are in the works to promote networking in the epidemiology community.
Have a blog that you would like to be included? Interesting content ideas? Suggestions for how SER can engage members and others via social media? Any feedback would be welcomed—e-mail the SER-SPC President, Stella Aslibekyan, at saslibek@uab.edu or message her on Twitter @saslibek. See you online!
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Abdulrahman El-Sayed Columbia University Harvard Medical School |
"Each of the three presenters will have their work highlighted at a spotlight session at the upcoming SER conference in Minneapolis and were awarded travel scholarships to attend the conference this summer"
On November 5th, the Student and Postdoc Committee hosted its very first annual electronic epidemiologic methodology applications conference (eMAC). The meeting was a resounding success, highlighting the potential for new media in teaching, learning, and communication in epidemiology.
The meeting opened with a fascinating debate about relative and absolute difference measures in epidemiologic research with Drs. Charlie Poole and Malcolm Maclure. The topic was engaging and the examples employed were thoughtful. The agenda then moved to presentations of the three most highly-rated student and trainee abstract submissions. The presentations were excellent, highlighting the thoughtful research of SER-SPC members. Meena Subbaraman opened the presentations talking on targeted maximum likelihood estimation for direct and indirect effect analysis. She was followed by Joshua Rosenbloom, who presented his work on propensity scores from multinomial logistic regression. Finally, Maral DerSarkissian concluded the conference with her presentation about using robust models for disagreeing collaborators. Each of the three presenters will have this work highlighted at a spotlight session at the upcoming SER conference in Minneapolis, and were awarded travel scholarships to attend the conference this summer. Accompanying the live presentations were several recorded "e-posters" of other submitted abstracts showcasing the work of SER-SPC members.
The meeting was the product of many hours of diligent effort and persistence. We thank several of our past presidents, including Arijit Nandi and Edgar Simard for their vision for the project and their help in seeing that vision through. Also instrumental was Jackie Brakey, whose support and hard work in coordinating the meeting, the online venue, and the abstract submission processes were inestimable.
Given the success of this first eMAC, we look forward to growing the venue and to many more successful e-conferences in years to come!
The SER Abraham Lilienfeld Prize Paper Competition
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Abraham Lilienfeld |
Deadline: February 3, 2012
Abraham Lilienfeld was one of the key architects of modern epidemiology. To honor his memory, the SER makes an annual award of $1,000 plus travel expenses to the SER meeting for the best submitted paper by a student in a doctoral program with a concentration in epidemiology. Please bring this competition to the attention of potential applicants.
The winner will present his or her research in the SER Annual Meeting in a plenary session. The paper will be considered for early publication in the American Journal of Epidemiology. The work must have been completed during the two years prior to the June 2012 meeting in Minneapolis, MN and must be unpublished at the time of the Annual Meeting. The applicant need not be a student at the time of the submission. No prize will be awarded if the review committee decides that none of the manuscripts is of superior quality.
Electronic copy (in English) must be RECEIVED no later than February 3, 2012. Authors must include their telephone number, address and current position, a statement indicating the date the work was completed, their academic doctoral advisor's name and signature, and the name of their department chair or head. Email papers in PDF to: Sandro Galea (sgalea@columbia.edu), copy to Sue Bevan (sbevan@epiresearch.org).
Future Meetings:
- 2012 - Minneapolis, MN (June 27-30), Hyatt Regency Minneapolis
- 2013 - Boston, Massachusetts (June 18-21), Boston Park Plaza Hotel
- 2014 - Seattle, Washington (June 24-27), Seattle Westin Hotel
2012 Meeting Deadlines:
- Abstract Submission Deadline: February 3, 2012 (submission form available Dec. 1, 2011)
- Lilienfeld Prize Applications Due: February 3, 2012
- Student Dissertation Workshop Applications Due: February 10, 2012
2012 Membership Renewal - Now Open
For current members, login to the SER members only section to renew online. Renew before December 20th in order to receive AJE without interruption. Renewal notices were emailed on November 1st. Look for your email which includes your membership id and password for online renewal.