ASA Alaska Chapter Annual Workshop and Meeting 2024

Date and time: Wednesday - Thursday, June 19 - June 20, 2024. 9 am – 5 pm each day.

Location: University of Alaska Fairbanks Campus, Akasofu Building, Room 401.

2160 North Koyukuk Drive, Fairbanks, AK 99709

Instructors: Sarah Cubaynes (in-person) and Olivier Gimenez (online)

Description: The hidden Markov modelling (HMM) framework has gained much attention in the ecological literature over the last decade, and has been suggested as a general modelling framework for the demography of plant and animal populations. In particular, HMMs are increasingly used to analyse capture-recapture data and estimate key population parameters (e.g., survival, dispersal, recruitment or abundance) with applications in all fields of ecology. In parallel, Bayesian statistics is relatively well established in ecology and related disciplines, because it resonates with scientific reasoning and allows accommodating uncertainty smoothly. The popularity of Bayesian statistics also comes from the availability of free pieces of software that allow practitioners to code their own analyses. In this workshop, we offer a Bayesian treatment of HMMs applied to capture-recapture data. Through a combination of lectures, real case studies and live demonstrations, you will get acquainted with multi-site, multi-state and multi-event capture-recapture models. We will use the R Nimble package that is seen by many as the future of ecological data modelling.

About the instructors

Sarah Cubaynes and Olivier Gimenez both work at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Montpellier, France. Dr. Cubaynes is an Associate Professor and Dr. Gimenez is a Senior Scientist. More information about Dr. Cubaynes’ work can be found at https://www.cefe.cnrs.fr/fr/recherche/bc/bbp/1052-ec/3841-sarah-cubaynes. Information about Dr. Gimenez’s work can be found at https://oliviergimenez.github.io/.

Lodging:

Best Western Plus Chena River Lodge. A block of rooms is available at a rate of $249/night (plus tax). Contact the hotel directly at 907-328-3500 and say you are with the “ASA AK Chapter Statistical Meeting” to get the block rate or use the following link: https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/book/hotel-rooms.02017.html?groupId=U50WM9F2. Rooms must be reserved before June 7th to get the block rate.

Lunch:

Sandwiches will be provided to in person participants. We will try to accommodate all dietary restrictions if given enough notice. Please contact Lainey Gallenberg ([email protected]).

Meeting participants must register. The 2-day registration fee will cover the short course and also includes 2 catered lunches, coffee, and refreshments. In-person participants will be limited to 24 people. Online participants will not be capped.

General Registration: The general registration rate for the 2-day meeting is $350. The registration rate applies through June 12 (Wednesday).

Late Registration: After June 12, a late registration rate of $400 will apply for the meeting.

Online Only Option: an online Zoom conference option for those that don't want or can't attend in-person for $150. Lunch is not provided.

Students: contact the organizer below to request a student fee waiver and travel funds that are available on a case-by-case basis, subject to need and available funds.

Lainey Gallenberg

715-222-9789

[email protected]

Host or Publisher ASA Alaska Chapter