SIG 140 History

History of the MLM SIG

Our multilevel modeling (MLM) SIG was founded by J. Kyle Roberts initially as the hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) SIG, with its first AERA conference sessions held in spring 2004. Dr. Roberts' account of the origins are as follows:

"The SIG was originally called “Inferential and Descriptive Bootstrapping and Resampling.” This SIG was started by Bruce Thompson at Texas A&M. We initially had about 50 members, but very quickly lost membership (and interest). When Xitao Fan (UVA) was the Chair, I approached him and Bruce about switching the focus of the SIG to HLM. I did this because it was becoming increasingly difficult to start a new SIG through the AERA hierarchy, but changing the focus of the SIG was not a big deal. Seeing that the IDBR SIG was dying a slow death, they agreed, and I filed the papers early 2003. I met with some people at the annual meeting of AERA that year and the IDBR membership voted unanimously to change the focus of the SIG. That’s how HLM SIG began in 2004. If memory serves right, we had two sessions that first year in addition to a standing room only business meeting where Steve Raudenbush spoke about Value-Added Modeling."

For the first several years the Chair was the sole officer. The Vice Chair/Chair-Elect was added in 2009 for the 2010 conference. This development provided the advantage of a succession process with a continuous institutional memory. The Treasurer was added in 2010 for the 2011 conference. Finally, in 2012, members voted to change the name to Multilevel Modeling SIG (MLM SIG) to better represent the prevailing terminology in the field and to be inclusive of random effects modeling for different multilevel data structures. The table below summarizes our conference leadership and speaker history. Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to our MLM SIG!

Year	Site	Chair	Vice-Chair	Treasurer	Keynote Speaker
2004	San Diego, CA, USA	J. Kyle Roberts, Baylor	---	---	Stephen Raudenbush, Michigan
2005	Montreal, Canada	Natasha Beretvas, Texas	---	---	Judith Singer, Harvard Roel Bosker, Groningen
2006	San Francisco, CA, USA	Keenan Pituch, Texas	---	---	Bengt Muthen, UCLA
2007	Chicago, IL, USA	D. Betsy McCoach, Connecticut	---	---	Michael Seltzer, UCLA
2008	New York, NY, USA	Pete Goldschmidt, CSU Northridge	---	---	Anthony Bryk, Stanford
2009*	San Diego, CA, USA	Finbarr Sloane, Arizona State	---	---	None
2010	Denver, CO, USA	Finbarr Sloane, Colorado	Walter Leite, Florida		Northwestern
2011	New Orleans, LA, USA	Walter Leite, Florida	Gregory Palardy, UC Riverside	Bethany Bell, South Carolina	David Rindskopf, CUNY Graduate Center
2012	Vancouver, BC, Canada	Gregory Palardy, UC Riverside	---	Bethany Bell, South Carolina	Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, UC Berkeley
2013	San Francisco, CA, USA	Oi-man Kwok, Texas A&M	Wen Luo, Wisconsin-Milwaukee	Nicholas Myers, Miami	Craig Enders, Arizona State
2014	Philadelphia, PA, USA	Wen Luo, Texas A&M	Jiun-Yu Wu, NCTU, Taiwan	Nicholas Myers, Miami	Tasha Beretvas, Texas
2015	Chicago, IL, USA	Jiun-Yu Wu, NCTU, Taiwan	Qi Chen, North Texas	Eun Sook Kim, South Florida	Laura Stapleton, Maryland
2016	Washington, DC, USA	Qi Chen, North Texas	Hsien-Yuan Hsu, Mississippi	Eun Sook Kim, South Florida	Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, UC Berkeley
2017	San Antonio, TX, USA	Hsien-Yuan Hsu, Mississippi	Minjung Kim, Alabama	Eun Sook Kim, South Florida	Betsy McCoach, Connecticut
2018	New York, NY, USA	Minjung Kim, Alabama	Bethany Bell, South Carolina	Eun Sook Kim, South Florida
2019	Toronto, Canada	Bethany Bell, South Carolina	Benjamin Kelcey, Cincinnati		Craig Enders, UCLA (Joint Quant SIG meeting)
2020	San Francisco, CA, USA^c	Benjamin Kelcey, Cincinnati	Mark Lai, Southern California	Mwarumba Mwavita, Oklahoma State
2021	Orlando, FL, USA^R	Mark Lai, Southern California	W. Holmes Finch, Ball State	Zuchao Shen, Florida
2022	San Diego, CA, USA^H	W. Holmes Finch, Ball State	Yu Yu Hsaio, New Mexico	Zuchao Shen, Florida
2023	Chicago, IL, USA	Yu Yu Hsaio, New Mexico	Julie Lorah, Clemson	Chunhua Cao, Alabama
2024	Philadelphia, PA USA	Julie Lorah, Clemson	Elizabeth Sanders, Washington (Seattle)	Chunhua Cao, Alabama
2025	Denver, CO, USA	Elizabeth Sanders, Washington (Seattle)	Yan Wang, Massachusettes (Lowell)	Chi-Ning (Nick) Chang, Virginia Commonwealth	To be announced!

* No election held

^C Conference cancelled (COVID-19 Pandemic)

^R Conference held as remote (COVID-19 Pandemic)

^H Conference held as hybrid (COVID-19 Pandemic)