U.S. EPA has awarded more than $6.25 million to establish a new Center for Integrating Statistical and Environmental Science at the University of Chicago. The center, affiliated with six universities and two other federal agencies, will advance statistical methods that can be applied to state and tribal risk assessment activities.

Once the center is operational, EPA will support research developing new statistical methods to assess the state of the physical environment and its impact on human and ecological health. Researchers at the center will investigate topics including:

• the relationship between air pollution and respiratory illnesses;

• statistical design and analysis for estimating trends in environmental indicators;

• approaches to combining numerical models and statistical methods;

• assessing the relationship between infant mortality and particulate air pollution; and

• the development of stochastic models and model selection procedures for complex ecological systems.

According to the Agency, statistical design and analysis techniques are central to environmental data collection programs and illustrate the need for a cutting-edge, cohesive national research capability in environmental statistics. The funding, awarded under a cooperative agreement, was awarded through EPA’s Science to Achieve Results program (http://es.epa.gov/ncer/).

EPA said the grant program is designed to engage the nation’s best university scientists and engineers in environmental research, and funds research in numerous environmental science and engineering disciplines through a competitive solicitation process and independent peer review.