NSF Award
2202327
This award supports participation of junior researchers in the 6th International Conference on the Design of Experiments (ICODOE 2022) held at the University of Memphis during May 8-11, 2022. The principles of design and analysis of experiments form a fundamental part of research and development in areas as diverse as medical trials, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, engineering, market research, agriculture, and many other fields. The conference will enable vital interaction between outstanding researchers in academia and industry who are advancing experimental design methodology with a view to improving systems for everyday life, from food delivery to cancer treatment. In addition, the conference will have a significant impact on the education of the next generation of researchers in experimental design, both junior researchers and those from underrepresented groups, by introducing them to innovative new methodology and new application areas, and by providing ample opportunity for these new researchers to interact with established researchers. <br/><br/>In the 21st century, the uses of experimental design have multiplied considerably. For example, the Design of Experiments (DOE), the science of pursuing knowledge through the process of efficient data collection, can enable progress in the search for more efficient and speedy artificial intelligence (AI) learning, which underpins the so-called "fourth industrial revolution." The techniques and principles that are fundamental to DOE have already found use in testing new algorithms. Sessions on reinforcement learning and machine learning at the ICODOE conference will introduce these topic areas to the DOE community and help to bridge knowledge between these communities. Other new developments in experimental design include its use in on-line experiments within networks, where lack of independence between treated and control groups is being tackled. Important advances on the design of experiments in the pharmaceutical industry have been made; conference sessions will present recent research dealing with COVID trial recruitment, oncology dose finding, and adaptive designs for use in clinical trials. In industry, the design of computer experiments and model calibration remain of high importance. Related to this is screening to determine the factors that most affect a response, and the use of sampling to analyze enormous data sets. In addition, traditional areas such as optimal design are being adapted to practitioner needs without losing efficiency. With sessions devoted to all these topics, the ICODOE conference will provide multiple unique interdisciplinary opportunities for early career researchers to form networks for future collaboration and will also actively bolster participation of underrepresented groups in mathematical and data sciences. Details on ICODOE 2022 can be found at https://www.memphis.edu/msci/icodoe22.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
