MTI, JPSM Host 2022 SAE Conference

The 2022 Small Area Estimation (SAE) International Conference was held in May at the University of Maryland. The event, hosted by the Maryland Transportation Institute in collaboration with the Joint Program in Survey Methodology (JPSM) and the Department of Mathematics, was held both in-person and virtually, and drew more than 250 participants from across the globe; visit sae2022.org for detailed information about the conference.

The annual SAE conference serves as a bridge among statisticians, survey methodologists, engineers, economists, mathematicians, computer scientists, and others interested in combining information from multiple databases in developing reliable inferences at granular levels.

Conference sessions also covered emerging topics in survey and official statistics, such as nonprobability sampling, probabilistic record linkage, and data fusion.

Keynote speakers included David Newhouse of the World Bank Group, Andrew Gelman of Columbia University, and UMD Distinguished University Professor Katherine Abraham.

“The event provided a valuable opportunity to exchange ideas, insights, and experiences, particularly with regard the emerging role of big data,” said MTI director Cinzia Cirillo, who organized the event together with JPSM Director Partha Lahiri. “SAE 2022 was an invigorating experience that reflected the dynamism of the field today.”

Noted Lahiri: “In recent years, there is a growing demand from different survey organizations to use SAE to produce disaggregated statistics. SAE essentially uses statistical models to extract information from multiple existing disparate databases and hence is much more cost effective than traditional methods that require new data collection.”

Established in 2019, MTI serves as a data hub for researchers across a variety of fields at UMD, including transportation engineering, economics, public health, public policy, and urban planning. Resources available at MTI include the Center for Advanced Transportation Technology Lab’s Regional Integrated Transportation Information System as well as extensive location and geospatial data gathering capabilities.

Published June 15, 2022