Improving IMS Meetings

Volume 37 • Issue 9 IMS Bulletin

November 2008 Improving IMS Meetings

Contents Xuming He writes: Each year, the IMS sponsors, and co-sponsors, a healthy number 1 Improving IMS Meetings of conferences, meetings, workshops or symposiums in probability and statistics. The IMS is a major sponsor of the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), each August in North 2 Members’ News: Jeff Wu; Sally Morton America. Every other year (odd years), the IMS Annual Meeting takes place at JSM: the 2009 IMS Annual Meeting will be embedded in the JSM to be held in Washington Journal News 3 DC, August 1–6, 2009. Other significant meetings to take place next year include 4 Meetings: Workshop for the ENAR/IMS Spring Meetings in San Antonio, Texas (March 15–19), the WNAR/ Women in Probability; IMS Meeting in Portland, Oregon (June 14–19), and the first IMS Asia Pacific Rim International Workshop in Meeting in Seoul, Korea (June 28 – July 1). Meeting announcements can be found in Applied Probability each issue of the Bulletin, and also online at http://www.imstat.org/meetings/. 6 Contribute Even with rising costs, enthusiasm about meetings never diminishes in our profes- 7 IMS Awards sion, because we all benefit from face-to-face meetings. We exchange ideas, disseminate new research outcomes, and promote collaborations. So how do we maximize our Laha Awardees 8 rewards each time we take several days off and travel to speak at, or attend, a meeting? 9 Making the Most of Almost all of our meetings are organized by volunteers in our own societies. Meetings Conference organizers and program committees are always eager to know what 10 Obituary: Oded Schramm our members want from the meetings. The Bulletin is not just a place for meeting announcements; we also welcome your ideas and suggestions on how you would like 12 Obituary: B. Kumar Ghosh; IMS-sponsored meetings to improve. Open discussions among our members and IMS Collections vol 3 between the conference participants and organizers can help all of us make the most 13 Obituary: Marc Raimondo; out of our passion for meetings. Write to us at [email protected] if you wish to con- dues reminder tribute to a healthy discussion on any issues involving conferences or workshops. Fateh 14 Terence’s Stuff: My Chebana has started this off: you can read his article on page 9. Favourite Algorithm If you have questions or suggestions on a specific meeting, please contact its pro- 15 IMS meetings gram chair or organizers. For JSM, contact the IMS Program Chairs, Michael Kosorok ([email protected]) or Xiaotong Shen ([email protected]), or the ASA Meetings 18 Other meetings Department ([email protected]). 22 Employment Opportunities 28 International Calendar of Statistical Events

31 Information for Advertisers 32 Kakuro corner At the last IMS Annual Meeting, in Singapore in July, the social events were very well- attended, and the conversations went on long into the evenings! IMS Bulletin 2 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9 Volume 37 • Issue 9 November 2008 IMS members’ news ISSN 1544-1881

Contact information Jeff Wu Garners Three Awards for Innovative Research IMS Bulletin Editor: Xuming He Dr. C. F. Jeff Wu, Coca-Cola Chair Professor at Georgia Tech’s Assistant Editor: Tati Howell School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, received three presti- Contributing Editors: Peter Bickel, Louis Chen, gious awards this summer for his seminal contributions to statistical Rick Durrett, Nicole Lazar, Terry Speed theory and methods and applications to science and engineering. To contact the IMS Bulletin: He received the 2008 Shewhart Medal from the American Society IMS Bulletin for Quality, for “seminal contributions to parameter design and 20 Shadwell, Uley, Dursley GL11 5BW quality improvement; for defining and building a modern system UK of experimental design; for education of a generation of quality e [email protected] professionals and professors; and for dedicated professional and editorial service in promoting quality improvement.” The Shewhart Medal is named after Walter Shewhart, pioneer To contact the IMS regarding your dues, of modern quality control. He was also selected as the 2008 ASA Quality and Productivity membership, subscriptions, orders or change of address: Research Conference Honoree for “seminal contributions to statistical theory and methods IMS Dues and Subscriptions Office for quality and productivity.” The conference, jointly honoring Professor Wu and fellow 9650 Rockville Pike, Suite L2407A statistician Professor George Box, was held on June 4 in Madison, Wisconsin. Wu also won Bethesda MD 20814-3998 the 2008 Pan Wen-Yuan Award, which is regarded as Taiwan’s most prestigious technology USA award. He is the first statistician or applied mathematician to have won this award. t 301.634.7029 f 301.634.7099 e [email protected] Sally Morton, 2009 ASA President Sally C. Morton is the 2009 President of the American Statistical To contact the IMS regarding any other matter, including advertising, copyright Association. Sally is the vice president for Statistics and permission, offprint orders, copyright Epidemiology at RTI International in Research Triangle Park, transfer, societal matters, meetings, fellows North Carolina. Sally, a long-standing IMS member, is currently nominations and content of publications: ASA President-Elect, and will serve as President from January 1 to Executive Director, Elyse Gustafson IMS Business Office December 31, 2009, then as Past President in 2010. PO Box 22718 Beachwood OH 44122 USA t 216.295.2340 Call for nominations for the Emmy Noether Lecturer at ICM 2010 f 216.295.5661 Emmy Noether was one of the great mathematicians of her time, someone who worked e [email protected] and struggled for what she loved and believed in. Her life and work remain a tremendous inspiration. The 2010 Emmy Noether Lecture will be presented as a plenary lecture at Executive Committee the International Congress of Mathematicians in August 2010 in Hyderabad, to honour President: Nanny Wermuth women who have made fundamental and sustained contributions to the mathematical sci- [email protected] ences. The 2010 ICM http://www.icm2010.org.in( ) will include a section on probability and President-Elect: J. Michael Steele [email protected] statistics, with 12–13 lectures. Past President: Jianqing Fan There have been Emmy Noether Lectures at four previous ICMs, and this will be the [email protected] second time that the selection of the Emmy Noether Lecturer has been made formally by Treasurer: Rong Chen the International Mathematical Union (IMU). The IMU Executive Committee has estab- [email protected] lished a committee of five, chaired by Cheryl Praeger (Australia), to select the 2010 Emmy Program Secretary: Guenther Walther [email protected] Noether Lecturer. The committee will conduct their work over the next 6–9 months, and suggestions for consideration by the committee may be sent to Cheryl Praeger at praeger@ maths.uwa.edu.au. IMS Editors November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 3 IMS Journals and Publications Annals of Statistics: Susan Murphy & Bernard Silverman http://imstat.org/aos/ IMS Journal News Annals of Applied Statistics: Bradley Efron, Stephen Fienberg, Michael Newton & Michael Stein Recently released journal issues http://imstat.org/aoas/ Annals of Probability: Gregory Lawler IMS Journals: http://imstat.org/aop/ Annals of Applied Statistics 2(3) http://projecteuclid.org/aoas Annals of Applied Probability: Edward Waymire Annals of Statistics 36(5) http://projecteuclid.org/aos http://imstat.org/aap/ Statistical Science: David Madigan Annals of Probability 36(5) http://projecteuclid.org/aop http://imstat.org/sts/ Statistical Science 23(2) http://projecteuclid.org/ss IMS Lecture Notes – Monograph Series: Anirban DasGupta http://imstat.org/publications/lecnotes.htm IMS Collections: Anirban DasGupta IMS-Supported Journals: http://imstat.org/publications/ Annales de l’Institut Henri Poincaré 44(5) http://projecteuclid.org/aihp imscollections.htm Bernoulli 14(3) http://projecteuclid.org/bj NSF-CBMS Regional Conference Series in Probability and Statistics: http://imstat.org/publications/nsf.htm IMS Co-sponsored Journals and Publications Electronic Journal of Statistics: Larry Wasserman http://imstat.org/ejs/ Electronic Journal of Probability: Andreas Greven http://www.math.washington.edu/~ejpecp/ Electronic Communications in Probability: David Nualart Blow your own trumpet! http://www.math.washington.edu/~ejpecp Announce your achievements. Celebrate your success. Declare /ECP/index.php Current Index to Statistics: George Styan your deeds. Proclaim your prizes. Herald your handiwork. You get http://www.statindex.org Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics: the idea… Write and tell us about your news (or someone else’s) David van Dyk and we’ll list it in the IMS Members’ News section for everyone to http://www.amstat.org/publications/jcgs/ Statistics Surveys: Jon Wellner read all about it. Email us at [email protected]. http://imstat.org/ss/ Probability Surveys: David Aldous http://imstat.org/ps/ IMS Supported Journals Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré (B): Alice Guionnet http://imstat.org/aihp/ Bayesian Analysis: Brad Carlin http://ba.stat.cmu.edu/ Bernoulli: Holger Rootzén http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli/ Brazilian Journal of Probability and Statistics: Silvia Ferrari http://www.redeabe.org.br/bjps.htm IMS Affiliated Journals Photo of Eklund, fromtrumpeter www.niklaseklund.com Niklas ALEA: Latin American Journal of Probability and Statistics: Claudio Landim http://alea.impa.br/english/ Probability and Mathematical Statistics: W. Szczotka, A. Weron & W.A. Woyczyński http://www.math.uni.wroc.pl/~pms/ Other IMS contacts IMS website: Krzysztof Burdzy http://imstat.org Managing Editor: Michael Phelan [email protected] Production Editor: Patrick Kelly [email protected] 4 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Meeting: Workshop for Women in Probability

Rick Durrett writes: A Workshop for Women in Probability was held October 5–7, 2008, at Cornell University. The scientific program, organized by Lea Popovic (Concordia) and Amber Puha (San Marcos), featured talks by Nina Gantert (Münster), Masha Gordina (U. Conn.), Elena Kosygina (Baruch), Elizabeth Meckes (Case Western), Tai Melcher (Virginia), Kavita Ramanan (CMU), Deena Schmidt (IMA), Anja Sturm (Delaware), Ruth Williams (UCSD), and Anita Winter (Erlangen). The program can be found on the conference web page: www.math.cornell. edu/~durrett/wwp/. The photo to the right shows the speakers and the 20 meeting participants. Departments that want to act affirmatively in their hiring should consult 2008 photo: Participants listed by row starting from the back: John Mayberry, Rick Durrett, Tomek Bartosynski (NSF this list since a number of these talented program officer), Naotaka Kajino; Sandra Kliem, Nina Gantert, Janna Lierl, Masha Grodina, Birgitta Vermesi; Hyekyung women are in the job market this year. Min, Sarah Schott, Grace Amusan, Elena Kosygina, Shishi Luo, Ruth Williams, Cindy Greenwood, Milica Cudina; Lerna Pehlivan, Amei Amei, Meredith Brown, Anita Winter, Amber Puha, Tai Melcher; Rohini Kumar, Lea Popovic, Rachel Ruth Williams found and brought to Thomas, Elizabeth Meckes, Kavita Ramanan, Anja Sturm, Joan Lind, Alexandra Chronopoulou; Jessica Zuniga, Deena the meeting a photo (below) of the partici- Schmidt. Not shown: Hongyuian Cao, Vanja Dukic pants at the 1994 conference, which was sponsored by the ARO-funded Mathematical Sciences Institute. 1994 photo [below]: Back row: Alison Etheridge, David Brillinger; Front row center stand- However, we have not been successful in identifying many of those ing: Ellen Toby, Jennifer Chayes, Harry Kesten, Keith Crank; Standing in front of left pillar: Alexandra Bellow, Molly Hahn; Standing at Right: Cindy Greenwood; Front row sitting: shown (see caption). If you can identify any more, please email Susan Lee (in hat); Second row sitting: Ruth Williams at far left; Third row sitting: Amber [email protected] and we’ll add them. Puha (second from left). November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 5

Meeting: International Workshop in Applied Probability

Joseph Glaz, University of Connecticut, of invited sessions encouraged the par- and Nikolaos Limnios, Université de ticipation of young scientists, women and Technologie de Compiègne in France, minorities, and we are glad to report that report on the recent International we successfully achieved this goal. Workshop in Applied Probability, held in The participants at IWAP 2008 were Compiègne, about 50 miles (80 km) north- encouraged to submit their contributions east of Paris. They write: to the scientific journal Methodology and An International Workshop in Applied Computing in Applied Probability, published Participants gathered in the courtyard of Château de Probability (IWAP 2008) took place at the by Springer. Pierrefonds, the location of the Gala Dinner Université de Technologie de Compiègne, The organization of the conference, in Compiègne, France, from July 7–10, including the scientific program and the 2008. social events, was of the highest quality. The We planned to have an interdisciplinary participants were impressed by how well all from 40 countries and 6 continents. Seven conference in the field of probability. The the sessions were attended and the quality plenary lectures were presented by lead- aim of this workshop was to bring together, of the scientific program. The members of ing scientists in applied probability. The and to foster exchanges among, scientists the organizing committee, including the scientific program included fifty-five invited working in the applications of probability technical support staff, did a superb job. sessions with 220 lectures and twenty-five to any field of science and technology, The President of Université de Technologie contributed sessions of 100 presentations. including: actuarial science, biology, com- de Compiègne, Professor Ronan Stephan, IWAP 2008 was co-sponsored by the munication theory, computer science, eco- and the President of Société Mathématique Bernoulli Society, Institute of Mathematical nomics, engineering, epidemiology, finance, de France, Professor Stéphane Jaffard, Statistics, Société de Mathématiques geography, linguistics, medicine, meteorol- delivered warm and visionary welcoming Appliquées et Industrielles, Société ogy, operations research, psychology, quality speeches at the opening session of IWAP Mathématique de France, Region Picardie, control, reliability theory, and statistics. 2008 that set an energetic tone for this Taylor & Francis Group, and Université de The Scientific Program Committee meeting. Technologie de Compiègne. included leading scientists in diverse areas This was the largest of the four Additional information about the work- of research in probability from all over the International Workshops in Applied shop, including its committees, plenary world, which ensured a strong and a broad Probability, a series initiated in 2002 at speakers and all the invited and contributed program and the participation of scientists the University of Simon Bolivar, Caracas, sessions, is available on the website http:// from all over the world. The organizers Venezuela. It was attended by 360 scientists www.lmac.utc.fr/IWAP2008/

Participants enjoying a coffee break between sessions 6 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Consider Contributing to the IMS

The IMS offers several opportunities for contributions to the to members in posting to ArXiv, and the IMS biobibs project. The society’s programs. Please take a moment to consider making a Open Access Fund will assist the IMS in defraying these expenses donation to one or more of these funds. and provide an opportunity for individuals and organizations to The IMS Gift Membership Program was established in 1991, support such efforts. to provide IMS memberships and journals for statisticians and The Tweedie New Researcher Award Fund was originally set probabilists in regions of the world where payments in hard cur- up with funds donated by Richard L. Tweedie’s friends and family. rency would impose a difficult financial burden. The IMS Council Professor Tweedie played a significant role throughout his profes- invites you to donate either a gift membership to a designated sional career in mentoring young colleagues at work and through individual or simply to donate to the general program fund. professional society activities. It seemed only fitting to use these The Le Cam Lecture Fund was originally endowed by friends funds to set up an award in his name. Funds are used to fund the and family of Lucien Le Cam who wished to memorialize his travel of the Tweedie New Researcher Award recipient to attend the contributions to our field. Professor Le Cam was an original thinker IMS New Researchers Conference and present the “Tweedie New and the honored IMS Le Cam Lecturer will be an individual whose Researcher Invited Lecture.” [See call for nominations on page 7]. contributions have been or promise to be fundamental to the To make a donation, complete the form below and send with development of mathematical statistics or probability. The Le Cam payment details (Mastercard/Visa/American Express/Discover, or check payable on Lecture is given every third year (next in 2009: Aad van der Vaart a US bank in US funds) to the IMS Dues and Subscriptions Office (see will deliver the Le Cam Lecture at JSM in Washington DC). Funds address on page 2). are used to cover travel of the Le Cam Lecturer to the IMS Annual Meeting to present the lecture. lease indicate your donation here: The Open Access Fund was established in 2006, to support the Gift Membership Program** $ establishment and ongoing operation of open access publications Le Cam Lecture Fund $ and ventures which foster the development and dissemination of Open Access Fund $ the theory and applications of statistics and probability. IMS cur- Tweedie New Researcher Award Fund $ rently has several open access publications, including: Probability TOTAL DONATION $ Surveys, Statistics Surveys, Electronic Journal of Probability, Electronic Your name: Communications in Probability and Electronic Journal of Statistics. If you are not an individual member of the IMS, please provide Each journal has modest expenses: typesetting, electronic platform your mailing address: placement and ArXiv posting. Three further IMS open access ventures are the posting of all IMS journal articles to ArXiv, assistance **Please complete the form below if you wish for your gift membership donation to go a specific person. If you do not wish to specify a recipient please leave this blank. I would like to donate a gift membership to: Recipient’s name Address

Phone E-mail Which of the following do you wish to include with your gift? Membership (includes IMS Bulletin): $38 $ 38.00 Annals of Statistics: $18 $ Annals of Applied Statistics: $14 $ Annals of Probability: $18 $ Annals of Applied Probability: $18 $ Statistical Science: $12 $ TOTAL Gift Membership donation $ November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 7

IMS Awards: nominate or apply now

Harry C Carver Medal IMS Laha Travel Awards http://www.imstat.org/awards/carver.html http://www.imstat.org/awards/laha.html Deadline: February 1, 2009 Deadline: February 1, 2009 Nominations are invited for the Carver Medal created by the With funds from a generous bequest by IMS in honor of Harry C. Carver, Founding Editor of the the late Professor Radha Govind Laha, Annals of Mathematical Statistics and one of the founders of the IMS has established the Laha Awards to IMS. The medal is for exceptional service specifically to the IMS provide funds for travel to present a paper Radha Laha and is open to any member of the IMS who has not previously at the 2009 IMS Annual Meeting, held at been elected President. Not more than one award shall be made the Joint Statistical Meetings in Washington DC, August 1–6, each year. 2009. The medal will be awarded at a ceremony during the next Eligibility: First priority to students, second priority to New IMS Annual Meeting in Researchers within 2 years of PhD at the date of the meeting. Washington DC (see left). Applicants must be members of IMS, though joining at the time The nominating com- of application is allowed. Student membership is free and New mittee consists of three Researchers also qualify for substantially reduced rates. former Presidents of the Amount: Grants per award provided to Laha awardees have IMS. been typically around US$500. The actual amount of an award For details on how to depends on the travel distance to the IMS statistical meeting. nominate, please see the Grants will be reimbursed against receipts and may be combined website above. with other sources of funding. For details on how to apply, please see the website above. Applications will be reviewed by the IMS Committee on Travel Awards. It is expected that at least 8 awards will be made. The work must be that of the student (or new researcher), IMS Fellowship nomination although it may be have been done in collaboration with an http://www.imstat.org/awards/fellows.htm advisor or others. All applicants must submit their paper to the Deadline: January 31, 2009 meeting directly. This travel grant award application and the Qualifications for Fellowship: The candidate shall have demon- meeting abstract submission are separate. strated distinction in research in statistics or probability, by publication of independent work of merit. This qualification may be partly or wholly waived in the case of either: Tweedie New Researcher Award (1) a candidate of well-established leadership whose contributions http://www.imstat.org/awards/tweedie.html to the field of statistics or probability other than original research Deadline: December 1, 2008 shall be judged of equal value; or Richard Lewis Tweedie played a significant (2) a candidate of well-established leadership in the application role throughout his professional career in of statistics or probability, whose work has contributed greatly to mentoring young colleagues at work and the utility of and the appreciation of these areas. through professional society activities. Candidates for fellowship should be members of IMS on With funds donated by his friends and Richard Tweedie December 1 of the year preceding their nomination, and should family, IMS has created the “Tweedie New Researcher Award”, have been members of the IMS for at least two years. to fund travel (up to US$2000) to present the Tweedie New For details on how to nominate, please see the website above. Researcher Invited Lecture at the Twelfth Meeting of New Please also read the supporting information on the website, and Researchers in Statistics and Probability, held immediately before pass on the information to letter-writers. Letters are expected JSM 2009, at Johns Hopkins University, USA. For details on explicitly to address the above IMS criteria for fellowship. how to apply, and eligibility criteria, please see the website above. 8 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Laha Awardees impressed by Singapore Congress

We asked this year’s Laha Travel Award recipients for their impressions of the World Paul Baines Congress in Probability and Statistics, held in July in Singapore. If you’re a student or Harvard University new researcher, you can apply for next year’s award for travel to Washington DC to The Laha award gave me a great present a paper at the IMS Annual Meeting, which opportunity to attend the IMS/Bernoulli takes place at JSM. See page 7 for David Croydon meeting in Singapore, to present my work, more on how to apply, and see the JSM University of Warwick, UK and listen to the many excellent speakers. website for information on the meeting: I was extremely grateful to receive Singapore was a wonderful experience and the www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2009/ the Laha award, which helped me to size and scope of the meeting were both ideal attend and present at the World Congress for new researchers. The application process in Singapore. This was a highly rewarding was very simple and fast, and I would Chen Quin (Eric) Lam and motivating experience, and I would definitely encourage other students The Ohio State University: encourage all young researchers to interested in attending the IMS I had a good time at the conference, make efforts to participate meetings to apply! especially the food! in the future.

The thirteen 2008 Laha Travel Award recipients, pictured here with Jianqing Fan, then IMS President, now Past-President [standing, left–right]: Jianqing Fan, Daniel Remenik, Deena Schmidt, Pál Rakonczai, David Croydon, Tyler McCormick, Amanda Turner, Paul D. Baines; [seated, left–right]: Chen Quin (Eric) Lam, Chengyong Tang, Qunhua Li, Chongzhi Di, Siegfried Hörmann and Silja Kinnebrock November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 9

Making the Most of Meetings

Fateh Chebana is associate researcher presentation. I think it is worth investing time in the preparation in the Industrial Chair in Statistical of a presentation, especially for young researchers. Indeed, a high Hydrology/Canada Research Chair on quality presentation allows attendees to understand the idea, and the Estimation of Hydrometeorological may lead to useful comments, and even future collaborations. Variables, at INRS-ETE in Québec, Canada. Furthermore, from my own experience, preparing a presentation He shares some ideas: has helped me on several occasions to reorganize the papers and Participation in conferences — as a speaker, attendee, organiser or my thoughts, which helps to make it more understandable and also chair — is a part of our profession. How can we make the most clarifies my understanding of the subject with some retrospective of conferences? What we expect from them is, I think, clear. evaluation. Conferences are an opportunity to meet new people, and new subjects as well, and, yes, to have fun. Young researchers’ priorities What can attendees do? differ from seniors’ and faculty members’. For instance, for young For attendees, there are some points to observe before, during and researchers, it is generally not a simple task to follow conferences after the conference. First, select a suitable kind of meeting, accord- that feature new subjects. I try to list some elements that may help ing to its stated goal. For instance, conferences dedicated to young to avoid a waste of time, and to maximise the advantages of confer- researchers are more friendly, and also contain more adapted panels. ences for young researchers. In order to capitalize on conferences, The New Researchers’ Conference, organized by the IMS, is a good each of the three concerned parts, organizer, speaker or attendee, example [there will be a report on the NRC in the next issue]. Small can do something. meetings focused on a specific subject, such as Bayesian inference or nonparametric estimation, are useful to get deeper into a subject. What can organizers do? They help expand networks for possible future collaborations, since Beyond their usual tasks, I propose that conference organizers generally, in such meetings, people are friendly and easy to talk to. contact speakers some weeks before the conference, and invite Then there are big meetings, such as the SSC annual meeting, or them to spend a minute or two at the start of their talk briefly very big ones such as the JSM. These are useful to get new ideas, to introducing the subject of the presentation. This argument comes combine several ideas, and to meet people from different subjects from my experience of starting a new subject, related to hydrologi- of interest. Once the conference is selected, as soon as the program cal statistics. When I present my work to statisticians who do not is available, it is a good idea to have a look at the program, select have a hydrological background, I find that it is essential to devote talks of interest and get an idea about the treated subject by reading some slides to explaining the context and the major problem areas the abstract. This helps to formulate comments, or to find a time before speaking about my own contribution to talk to the speakers. During the presenta- to the finer details. Otherwise, I guess, the A poster session at this year’s JSM in Denver tion, it is important to take selective notes, presentation will not be engaging, or will be web pages, or any important information to very difficult to understand. I think this is consult later, since it not possible to grasp very useful for both speaker and attendees. everything at the time. After the conference, A second proposal for organizers is to put it is time to consult these notes, perhaps online the program and the abstracts as email the person who promised a manu- early as possible, to serve as a support for script, or to ask them for more explanation attendees. about a specific point. I hope by taking into account these What can speakers do? suggestions, conferences become more For speakers, obviously, the objective is enjoyable activities, especially their scientific to communicate the idea. To this end, it aspects. is important to make the presentation as Finally, I invite IMS members to share clear and organized as possible. Speakers their different experiences about this sub- are invited to follow the above organizer ject. Contact the IMS Bulletin at bulletin@ proposition regarding the beginning of the imstat.org. 10 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Ob i t u a r y : Oded Schramm 1961–2008

The mathematical world was shocked to learn that Oded Schramm, one of the world’s best and most influential probabilists, died September 1, 2008, in a fall while hiking on Guye Peak, Washington. He was a very experienced and careful hiker, which made his death all the more shocking. Oded was an extraordinary mathematician who transformed our understanding of critical processes in two dimensions through his introduction of the Stochastic Loewner Evolution, tying probability theory to complex analysis in a completely novel way. Born December 10, 1961, in Jerusalem, Israel, he published his first paper in probability only in 1996. Prior Oded Schramm to this, he made fundamental contributions to the theory of circle packing. Other areas of probability theory in which he pioneered new directions included percolation, random spanning trees, and quickly became the leader of this field, proving results that are still noise sensitivity of Boolean functions. unsurpassed today. For example, in 1993 Oded and his frequent co- Oded’s extraordinary clarity of thought led to dazzling proofs author Zheng-Xu He gave the best available result on a conjecture and results. He received the Erdős Prize in Mathematics (1996), the of Koebe from 1908 on circle domains. Salem Prize (2001), the Clay Research Award (2002), the Poincaré Oded then moved to the Weizmann Institute of Science. Prize (2003), the Loève Prize (2003), the Pólya Prize (2006), and He was already aware of the physicists’ conjecture concerning the Ostrowski Prize (2007). He was elected as a member of the conformal invariance of the probability of crossing a quadrilateral Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (2008). Oded gave many pres- in critical percolation. At the Weizmann Institute, he began his tigious lectures, including plenary addresses in the 2004 European collaboration with Itai Benjamini in what was to become a long Congress of Mathematics, the 2006 International Congress of series of beautiful papers in probability theory. In one of their Mathematicians, and the 2008 World Congress in Probability and first papers together, they used circle packing to prove that every Statistics, as well as the 2005 Coxeter Lecture Series at the Fields planar graph of bounded degree on which simple random walk is Institute and a 2006 Abel lecture. He was due to give the Gibbs transient admits a non-constant bounded harmonic function of Lecture at the national AMS-MAA meeting in 2009. Oded served finite Dirichlet energy. This is very striking in its minimality of on the editorial boards of some of the top journals in mathematics, assumptions; for example, ℤd for d > 2 is transient, but admits no including Ann. Math., JAMS, GAFA, and Ann. Probab. such harmonic function. Oded’s brilliance was renowned even as a student. He received In the same year, 1996, Itai and Oded published a seminal a BSc in mathematics and computer science from the Hebrew paper, “Percolation beyond ℤd, many questions and a few answers”. University in 1986. One year later, he finished an MSc in math- This paper raised fundamental conjectures concerning the relation ematics at Hebrew University under the direction of Gil Kalai. of isoperimetric profiles to Bernoulli percolation theory, especially While doing his master’s work, he obtained what is still the best whether percolation always has a non-uniqueness phase on every upper bound on Borsuk’s partition problem from 1933. He then non-amenable transitive graph (such as Cayley graphs of groups). moved to Princeton University, where he obtained a mathematics In addition to that influential paper, another impetus that led PhD with William Thurston in 1990. The field of circle packing to several important works in discrete probability was Oded’s study, dates from Koebe (1936), Andreev (1970), and Thurston (1985). with Itai Benjamini, Russ Lyons and Yuval Peres, of uniform span- Together with applications to conformal mapping, this was the ning forests. This latter topic arose with a paper by Robin Pemantle topic of Oded’s dissertation. His first paper on circle packing was (1991), who studied the limits of uniform spanning trees in finite published in JAMS. During a two-year postdoc at UCSD, Oded pieces of ℤd, answering questions posed by Russ. The limiting November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 11

measure is called the uniform spanning forest on ℤd. As this team by a real curve that had stationary independent increments, and of four studied the topic anew, they found uses for the Mass- therefore was Brownian motion. Oded further realized that if one Transport technique that Olle Häggström had recently introduced took different speeds for the Brownian motion, then one ought to on trees. A small section on the Mass-Transport Principle eventually obtain curves that appeared in other planar models if conjectures by grew into a separate long paper. Among the consequences that fell physicists were correct. out of this separate paper were the solution, in the non-amenable There were formidable technical difficulties that took years to context, of one of the conjectures in that seminal paper of Itai and overcome. In 1999, Oded moved to Microsoft Research and began Oded’s, namely, that there are no infinite clusters almost surely in a long collaboration with Greg Lawler and Wendelin Werner to critical Bernoulli percolation. Robin had proved the amazing result prove many of the conjectures in his first (solo) SLE paper, as well that the uniform spanning forest on ℤd is a tree up to dimension as many results purely about planar Brownian motion. For exam- 4, and then a forest with infinitely many trees. Itai, Harry Kesten, ple, they proved a conjecture of Mandelbrot that the Hausdorff Yuval and Oded showed that actually there is a phase transition dimension of the outer boundary of planar Brownian motion is every 4 dimensions! Another striking result with Russ from this a.s. 4/3. In percolation, they proved that the probability that the period was that when Bernoulli percolation on a Cayley graph has cluster of the origin in critical site percolation on the triangular grid infinitely many infinite clusters, the infinite clusters are indistin- has diameter larger than R decays like R –5/48 as R→∞. This body of guishable by any invariantly defined property. work was a major reason for the award of a Fields Medal (2006) to Oded’s first approach to the conformal invariance conjecture on Wendelin. planar percolation was to consider another model, that of percola- SLE came from Oded’s third attempt at the conformal invari- tion on the Voronoi cells of a Poisson process in the plane. In fact, ance conjecture for percolation. There had been a second attempt he and Itai proved a partial conformal invariance in dimensions 2 by Itai and Oded involving the concept of noise sensitivity for and 3. However, his greatest success on that conjecture arose from Boolean functions, important in computer science. Although this studying a similar conjecture on loop-erased random walk, a topic didn’t work for proving the conjecture, it was of independent inter- that had been introduced by Greg Lawler and used by Robin to est. Joining with Gil Kalai, they published a major paper showing study uniform spanning trees. that the crossing event for percolation is noise sensitive and that This led to Oded’s most important and fundamental contribu- this followed from rather general principles. Oded built on this in tion, that of SLE, which stands for Stochastic Loewner Evolution a remarkable paper with Jeff Steif on dynamical percolation, and in or Schramm-Loewner Evolution. Here, he combined Brownian further profound work with Christophe Garban and Gábor Pete. motion with complex analysis in a totally new and unexpected Oded wrote many other brilliant papers that we lack the space way that has allowed people (mostly in collaboration with him) to to mention. He was recruited by the most prestigious centers of establish conjectures that had been unapproachable prior to this. mathematics, but this meant less to him than his love of moun- The basic idea is that if one has a domain such as a disk, but miss- tains. ing a simple curve attached at one point to its boundary, then the Oded was a remarkable individual: always calm, humble, Riemann mapping theorem gives a conformal map to the unit disc. extremely generous with his insights and ideas, the best collaborator Loewner (1923) realized that since one can parametrize such a miss- one could hope for and the person who could always be relied ing curve, one can also parametrize the resulting conformal maps on. All those who knew Oded loved him, and are grateful for the where only part of the curve is missing. This leads to a differential chance to have known him. equation. In effect, a curve lying in the real line is transformed Written by Russell Lyons, by the equation to a domain with a growing slit. Oded realized with contributions from Yuval Peres, Gil Kalai, and Scott Sheffield. that if loop-erased random walk had a scaling limit that enjoyed Memorial webpage: http://research.microsoft.com/schramm/ conformal invariance, then this limiting path had to be produced Memorial blog: http://odedschramm.wordpress.com/ 12 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Ob i t u a r y : Bhaskar Kumar Ghosh 1936–2008

Professor Bhaskar Kumar Ghosh died where he remained until he retired in 2005. in 1986–1987. He was a fluent German Sunday, August 3, 2008 in Bethlehem, Although Kumar Ghosh published speaker and visited Germany often. He was Pennsylvania. He was the husband of the important papers in many areas of statistics a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt late Hedwig (Graf) Ghosh, who passed including distribution theory, statistical Senior US Scientist award for research at away in 2007. Born in India on February inference and density estimation, he was the University of Münster from 1986–87 10, 1936, he was the son of the late Saroj best known for his work in sequential and again in 1992. and Usha Rani (Bose) Ghosh. Kumar analysis. His early work led to the widely- At Lehigh University, Kumar was Ghosh was a fellow of the Institute of cited book Sequential Tests of Statistical very interested in university and depart- Mathematical Statistics and the Royal Hypotheses, published in 1970. Kumar was ment affairs. He served as Chair of the Statistical Society. the founding and joint editor with P. K. Mathematics Department from 1981 to Ghosh received his BSc in Statistics Sen of the journal Sequential Analysis which 1985. He helped grow a strong research from the University of Calcutta in 1955 began in 1982. He was also the joint editor group in probability and statistics within and his PhD in Mathematical Statistics with P. K. Sen of the Handbook of Sequential the mathematics department. Many from the University of London in 1959. Analysis, published in 1991. members of the department appreciated his His thesis committee consisted of Norman Kumar Ghosh collaborated with many mentorship. Johnson, Peter Armitage and Egon Pearson. statisticians, including H.S. Freeman when He is survived by his three daughters, Kumar worked as a Research Assistant at he was a Visiting Associate Professor of Monica of Atlanta, Georgia; Anita of University College, London, as a Statistician Economics at MIT in 1968; with M.R. Arlington, Virginia; and Rebecca of Seattle, at Atomic Power Constructions, London, Reynolds when he was a Visiting Professor Washington. and as Assistant Professor of Mathematics at of Statistics at Virginia Tech from 1978 to Bennett Eisenberg and Wei-Min Huang Chelsea College, London, before joining the 1980; and with N.J. Schmitz when he was a Department of Mathematics, faculty of the Department of Mathematics Visiting Professor of Mathematical Statistics Lehigh University at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA, at the University of Münster in Germany

IMS Collections: volume 3 released The third volume in the IMS Collections series has been released. specification; model selection; Bayesian nonparametrics; and high- Pushing the Limits of Contemporary Statistics: Contributions in Honor dimensional problems. Among his research interests, asymptotics of Jayanta K. Ghosh, edited by Bertrand Clarke and Subhashis and their applications have been the main recurring theme of Ghosal, is $89 for IMS members ($148 for non-members). Jayanta’s research since he published his first paper in sequential The editors assert in the introduction to the volume that Jayanta statistics in 1960, at the age of 23. So, as a generality, asymptotics Kumar Ghosh is one of the most extraordinary professors in the undergirds most of the material in this volume honoring him. field of statistics. His research in numerous areas, especially asymp- Fortunately, asymptotic thinking pervades statistical inference, totics, has been ground-breaking, influential throughout the world, even in the most applied contexts, so, this is hardly a limitation. and widely recognized through awards and other honors. His On the other hand, asymptotics has a way of being impenetrably leadership in statistics as Director of the Indian Statistical Institute abstract. However, all the papers here, are, in Woodroofe’s memo- and President of the International Statistical Institute, among other rable phrase, written at a level that would be “accessible to a deter- eminent positions, has been outstanding. mined graduate student”. The editors encourage readers to have a In recognition of Jayanta’s enormous impact, this volume is look at least at the introductions of papers outside their research an effort to honor him by drawing together contributions to the area, just for pure love of the field and the joy of intellectual stimu- main areas in which he has worked and continues to work. The lation, suspecting that once someone has read the introduction, he papers naturally fall into five categories: sequential estimation; prior or she will be ineluctably led to finish the whole paper. November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 13

Ob i t u a r y : Marc Raimondo 1969–2008

Marc Raimondo died suddenly on 10 Box-car problem with Iain Johnstone. He August, 2008, after a very short illness. He worked a lot in this direction, with many was aged 39. coauthors: Cavalier, Donoho, Johnstone, For his PhD, Marc studied the problem Kerkyacharian, Kulik, Picard, Stewart... In of finding change points in data with possi- particular he became a worldwide expert bly explosive structure using wavelets at the on the WaveD algorithm, which he studied University of Paris VII, under the direction theoretically as well as writing many algo- of Dominique Picard. At the end of his rithms derived from this procedure. He was degree, he was looking to find a position delighted in 2004 to be invited to a special in France but was also very interested in discussion on this procedure at the Royal going to Australia. He was extremely happy Statistical Society in London. Marc Raimondo when Peter Hall found a post doc position He was very happy with his last result for him in Canberra in 1996 and left with Kulik, linking regression with cor- up a research group within the School of immediately! They worked together there related errors and inverse problems, and Mathematics and Statistics. on the problem of data on a grid and Marc wanted to work on special aspects of density In Sydney Marc developed a love of was fascinated by some part of this work estimation which for him was a problem surfing and was regularly found at the involving number theory. After Canberra, with no entirely satisfactory solution. Sydney fish markets — his favourite shop- he spent some months in Stanford working In the week before he died he was ping precinct. He was a keen photographer with Iain Johnstone and Dave Donoho. pleased to receive an invitation to be one of and was actively involved in supporting He was extremely happy to obtain his the Distinguished Lecturers at the next IMS and promoting the indigenous art of the position at the University of Sydney in Asia Pacific Rim conference planned for Maningrida community where Apolline 1999. At this time, he began to work in Korea in June 2009. Kohen, his wife, was based. many directions in statistics, but especially Marc had considerable success working Marc visited France quite often, kept on thresholding procedures in connection with students in the Talented Students very good relations with French statisticians to extreme variable theory, with N. Tajvidi, Program at the University of Sydney on and had many coauthors as well as friends and also began to work on one of his major quite applied projects such as change-points among them. The French statistical com- contributions: deconvolution and inverse analysis of hydrological data; describing munity were very proud of his experience problems. Again we find his interest in fractal activities of financial data and statis- of being completely adapted to two quite number theory since he used diophantine tical extreme values modelling by peaks over different countries. approximations to solve the difficult high thresholds. He was starting to build Dominique Picard and Neville Weber IMS dues: renew by December 31 and save 20% Renewing your IMS membership before the end of the year saves the institute money, and we pass that saving back to you as a 20% discount on your dues. (Students join IMS for free!) While you are renewing at https://www.imstat.org/secure/orders/IndMember.asp, you might consider the following joint society memberships (the rates are available at https://www.imstat.org/secure/orders/2009.html): Bernoulli Society (BS): save 25% off your IMS and your BS dues by joining/renewing both organizations at the same time. INFORMS/Applied Probability Society (INFORMS/APS): Join/renew INFORMS/APS for just $10 International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA): Join/renew ISBA at the time you renew your IMS dues and save 25% off ISBA dues. International Statistical Institute/Bernoulli Society (ISI/BS): IMS members save 25% off your IMS and ISI/BS dues by joining/renewing both organizations at the same time. To join/renew with ISI/Bernoulli Society, please visit http://isi.cbs.nl/Bern_IMS_ISI-form.asp Sociedad Latino Americana de Probabilidad y Estadistica Matematica (SLAPEM) - IMS members can join SLAPEM for 50% off the regular SLAPEM membership fee. 14 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Terence’s Stuff: My Favourite Algorithm

Terry Speed picks on a Brunsviga, a Marchant or an HP “A simplified procedure – iterative propor- an algorithm that is calculator by hand. Something that blew tions”, which is the IPS (IPFP) that we now elegant, interesting, me away when I first saw it was Strassen’s know. I first met it as a way of computing useful, provably correct, not obvious, algorithm for multiplying two 2×2 matrices MLEs in hierarchical loglinear models for and can be carried using just 7 multiplications (and a few more contingency tables, and carried out many out by hand. And the additions). Know it? Check Wikipedia and by hand for 3-way and occasionally 4-way winner is… be amazed. tables. In this context it is not realising its Now it’s time to reveal my overall full potential, as the underlying model is hat’s your favourite algorithm? favourite. It is the iteratively proportional usually no-interaction, whereas the algo- I know many statisticians are scaling (IPS) algorithm or fitting procedure rithm preserves the appropriate set of cross- deeply in love with the EM (IPFP). This was presented (doubtless not ratios (interactions). Why is it my favourite? Walgorithm, but I see the EM as a class of for the first time, though I know of no As with Heron, it is elegant, it isn’t obvious algorithms, rather than just one. Here are earlier citations) by W.E. Deming and F.F. (though it has been rediscovered several a few candidates that floated around in my Stephan in the 1940 volume of our own times in special cases), it is undeniably use- head before I settled on my answer. Annals. Interestingly, the algorithm they ful, and it can be (and was first) carried out The Babylonian (or Heron’s) method gave us didn’t exactly solve the problem by hand. As for provably correct, therein for calculating square roots was a favourite they began with, which was to carry out lies a fascinating story. Finding a proof is of mine at school. Elegant, not obvious, a least-squares adjustment of a multi-way interesting, even in the 2×2 case (remember useful, can be carried out by hand, and is table of counts — a cross-tabulation — when these simplest of crosstabs?), and it took provably correct. Perhaps I’ll add a further the expected marginal totals were known. some time for a correct proof to emerge. desideratum: that it is a point of entry to Digression: Deming’s book Statistical There are papers on the 2-way case, but interesting, non-trivial generalizations and adjustment of data is a wonderful exposition the best proof for the most general case is connections with other mathematics. of the wider topic, giving us access to the simplest. All of this is great, and we haven’t An early statistical algorithm that I least squares of Gauss and Legendre, and even got started. There is a version of this really liked was Yates’ for analyzing 2n fac- later nineteenth century developments from algorithm for quite general joint distribu- torials. This pleasure was heightened by the astronomy and geodesy. This is a tradition tions, it works out beautifully for Gaussians fact that soon afterwards I met an extension incomparably richer than the y = X β+ε least (aka multivariate normals), there are other of Yates’ to 3n and mixed factorials that was squares which is all we see these days, until generalizations, including a great one due due to someone (J.R. Bainbridge) from my we meet penalized or other variants on to a pair of my countrymen, there is the home town whom I’d actually seen in the least squares. Secondary digression: I can’t geometry with the I-divergence (Kullback- flesh. This was a big deal for the under- think of Gauss these days without thinking Leibler) “metric” which leads to the slickest graduate me: seeing a connection between of xxx. Read Daniel Kehlmann’s brilliant proof of convergence, valuable connections stuff written on tablets and a person I (sort Measuring the World to see what I mean. with exponential families, and much more. of) knew. I think we underestimate how Back to Deming and Stephan. They met This algorithm has it all! hard it is for students to appreciate that not their problem in the context of the 1940 Didn’t John Lee Hooker [below] once play with that old everything is set in stone, that much is alive US census, they posed it in terms of least blues man, Al Go-Rhythm? No? and in active development, sometimes by squares because that’s what people did in people we meet. those days, and they went about solving A few years later I learned the Cooley- it in the traditional way using Lagrange Tukey FFT, and shortly after that, via I.J. multipliers. This was hard work by hand, Good, how group theory brought out the but along the way, doubtless inspired by Photo: Masahiro Sumori unity of (one form of) the FFT and Yates’ their familiarity with a method that went algorithm. But I’m cheating here, as I’ve back to Gauss — now variously called the never done an FFT by hand. For me a Gauss-Seidel algorithm, alternating projec- favourite algorithm must be one I’ve done tions or back-fitting — they dreamed up November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 15

IMS meetings around the world At a glance: forthcoming IMS co-sponsored meeting JSM2009 IMS Annual August 1–6, 2009 Meeting and Washington DC JSM dates w www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2009/ The next IMS Annual Meeting will take 2009 place as part of the 2009 Joint Statistical Meetings, which will be held in Washington IMS Annual Meeting DC. The theme of the JSM is “Statistics: @ JSM: Washington From Evidence to Policy”. The IMS Program DC, August 1–6, Chairs are Michael Kosorok kosorok@unc. 2009 edu and Xiaotong Shen [email protected]. edu 2010 JSM: Vancouver, Travel awards for new researchers Canada, July 31– The IMS Laha Travel Awards fund travel to August 5, 2010 present a paper at the IMS Annual Meeting. The application deadline is February 1, IMS Annual Meeting: 2009. Details are available at the website Gothenburg, http://www.imstat.org/awards/laha.html Sweden, August 9–13, 2010 2011

[right]: Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Destination DC Photo: IMS Annual Meeting @ JSM: Miami Beach, IMS co-sponsored meeting series FL, July 30– 2008 NSF-CBMS Regional Research Conferences in the Mathematical Sciences August 4, 2011 The US National Science Foundation has supported 9 NSF-CBMS Regional Research Conferences during 2008; the last meeting is listed below. These conferences are intended to stimulate interest 2012 and activity in mathematical research. Each five-day conference features a distinguished lecturer who delivers ten lectures on a topic of important current research in one sharply-focused area of the mathematical sciences. The JSM: San Diego, lecturer subsequently prepares an expository monograph based upon these lectures, which is normally published as CA, July 28– a part of a regional conference series. August 2, 2012 Support for about 30 participants is provided and the conference organizer invites both established researchers IMS Annual Meeting and interested newcomers to attend. Contact the conference organizer for information about an individual confer- @ World Congress: ence. Questions should be directed to: CBMS, 1529 18th St. NW, Washington DC 20036-1385. t (202) 293-1170; İstanbul, Turkey, f (202) 293-3412; e [email protected] or [email protected] Date TBA NSF-CBMS Conference: Tropical Geometry and Mirror Symmetry December 13–17, 2008 Kansas State University, Kansas, USA 2013 w www.math.ksu.edu/~rcastano/CBMS.html IMS Annual Meeting Lecturer: Mark Gross @ JSM: Montréal, Ricardo Castano-Bernard, Yan Soibelman, and Ilia Zharkov, organizers: 785-532-0585, [email protected]; Canada, August 785-532-0584, [email protected]: 617-495-8797, [email protected] 3–8, 2013 16 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

More IMS meetings around the world

IMS co-sponsored meeting Now an IMS co-sponsored meeting Fifth Cornell Probability Summer School NEW Symposium on New Directions in Asymptotic Statistics July 6–17, 2009 May 15–16, 2009 UPDATED Cornell University, Ithaca NY Athens, Georgia, USA w http://www.math.cornell.edu/~durrett/CPSS2009/ w http://aaron.stat.uga.edu/news_events/symposium09/ The Fifth Cornell Probability Summer School will feature six The objective of the symposium is to bring together both well- lecture series by Ander Holroyd, “Matching, coupling, and point established and emerging young researchers from around the processes,”; Robin Pemantle, “Probability from generating func- world who are actively pursuing research in asymptotic methods in tions”; and Yuval Peres, “Aspects of Markov chains.” Co-starring likelihood inference, time series, inference for stochastic processes, will be Rick Kenyon, Scott Sheffield, and Balint Virag who will each estimating functions, robust inference, parametric, semi-parametric give two lectures. and nonparametric methods, and functional estimation. The The conference web page has more information, and a registra- conference aims to provide a forum for leading experts and young tion form for people who would like to participate. All accepted researchers to discuss recent progress in asymptotic theory, thereby participants will have their dorm room paid for. US participants providing new directions for asymptotic inference in various fields. can apply for support for travel and $200 toward the cost of meals. The organizers of the conference are Ishwar Basawa e ishwar@ This meeting is supported by a Research Training Group grant stat.uga.edu and T.N.Sriram e [email protected] from the National Science Foundation to the probability group at Cornell. IMS co-sponsored meeting An extra incentive for attending this year’s summer school is ISNI2008: International Seminar on Nonparametric Inference that the INFORMS Applied Probability Society Conference will be November 5–7, 2008. Vigo, Spain held in Ithaca from July 12–15, 2009. w www.isni2008.com ISNI2008 is a three-day international meeting devoted to IMS co-sponsored meeting nonparametric statistics. It will be held in Vigo, Galicia, in the International Workshop on Flexible Modelling: Smoothing and north-west of Spain. Its aim is to facilitate the exchange of research Robustness (FMSR 2008) ideas and to promote collaboration among researchers in the field. November 12–14, 2008. Leuven, Belgium The meeting is promoted by the three Galician research groups w http://wis.kuleuven.be/stat/fmsr2008.php in nonparametric statistics (Vigo, Santiago de Compostela, and A The workshop takes place in Leuven, a beautiful historic city in the Coruña), as well as by a number of close scientific collaborators northern part of Belgium. The general theme of the workshop is coming from different countries in Europe and the USA. semi- and nonparametric analysis and robust statistical methods. The Scientific Programme includes seventeen invited talks given More specific themes are, among others, flexible smoothing and by leading researchers in several areas of nonparametric statistics: penalization, model selection, nonparametric functional estimation, Peter Hall (Melbourne); Hans Georg Müller (UC Davis); Jianqing modelling dependencies and inference for copulas, robust multivar- Fan (Princeton); Jan Swanepoel (Potchefstroom); Anthony iate outlier detection, semi- and nonparametric methods in time- Davison (Lausanne); Lutz Duembgen (Bern); Natalie Neumeyer series analysis. There will be invited talks, contributed talks and (Hamburg); Gerda Claeskens (KU Leuven); Anestis Antoniadis poster sessions. The workshop will be followed by a short course for (Grenoble); Juan Carlos Pardo-Fernández (Vigo); Holger Dette PhD-students. List (Bochum); Philippe Vieu (Toulouse); Gábor Lugosi (Barcelona); of Invited Speakers: Jean Opsomer (Colorado State); Stefan Sperlich (Göttingen); Anestis Antoniadis, Winfried Stute (Giessen); and Geert Molenberghs (Hasselt). Graciela Boente, The Journal of Nonparametric Statistics will devote a special issue Jianqing Fan, Peter with contributions to the meeting. Hall, Xuming He, ISNI2008 is organized by the SiDOR (Statistical Inference, Bruno Rémillard, Decision and Operations Research) group at the Faculty of Qiwei Yao, and Economics and Business, University of Vigo. Bernard Silverman. Arenberg Castle in Leuven, Belgium November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 17

IMS co-sponsored meeting: IMS Asia Pacific Rim Meeting June 28 – July 1, 2009, Seoul, Korea w http://ims-aprm.org/ IMS co-sponsored meeting: The first IMS Asia Pacific Rim Meetings will take place in Seoul, Korea during the period 2009 ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting June 28 – July 1, 2009. The new meeting series will provide an excellent forum for scientific March 15–18, 2009 communications and collaborations for researchers in Asia and the Pacific Rim. It will also Grand Hyatt San Antonio, San Antonio, TX promote communications and collaborations between researchers in this area and those w http://www.enar.org/meetings.cfm from other parts of the world. The program covers a wide range of topics in statistics and probability, presenting recent developments and the state of the art in a variety of modern IMS co-sponsored meeting: research topics and in applications. For more information, visit http://ims-aprm.org/ or 2010 ENAR/IMS Spring Meeting contact the program chairs: Feifang Hu ([email protected]) or Runze Li ([email protected]) March 21–24, 2010 Hyatt Regency New Orleans, New Orleans, LA IMS co-sponsored meeting. IMS co-sponsored meeting w http://www.enar.org/meetings.cfm 2009 Spring Research Conference on Seventh Workshop on Bayesian Statistics in Industry and Technology Nonparametrics IMS co-sponsored meeting May 27–29, 2009 June 21–25, 2009 Workshop for Women in Probability Vancouver, Canada Collegio Carlo Alberto, Moncalieri, Italy October 5–7, 2008 w http://www.stat.sfu.ca/~boxint/src2009/ w http://bnpworkshop.carloalberto.org/ Cornell University, Ithaca, New York Please email questions to Boxin Tang, The aim of the Workshop is to highlight w www.math.cornell.edu/~durrett/wwp/ [email protected]. the latest developments in Bayesian A conference for Women in Probability The goal of the conference is to promote Nonparametrics covering a wide variety of will be held October 5–7, 2008, at Cornell cross-disciplinary research in statistical both theoretical and applied topics. The University. The conference begins Sunday methods in engineering, science and meeting will be held at the Collegio Carlo morning and ends at noon Tuesday. The technology. This covers a wide range of Alberto, a research institution housed in an scientific program, which is being organized application areas including environment, historical building located in Moncalieri on by Lea Popovic (Concordia) and Amber information and manufacturing sciences. the outskirts of Turin, Italy. Puha (San Marcos), will feature talks by The conference will provide a forum where Contact e [email protected] Jennifer Chayes (Microsoft), Nina Gantert participants can describe current research, (Muenster), Masha Gordina (U. Conn.), identify important problems and areas of IMS co-sponsored meeting Elena Kosygina (Baruch), Elizabeth Meckes application, and formulate future research 33rd Conference on Stochastic Processes and (Case Western), Tai Melcher (Virginia), directions. their Applications Kavita Ramanan (CMU), Deena Schmidt July 27–31, 2009 (IMA), Anja Sturm (Delaware), and Ruth IMS co-sponsored meeting Berlin, Germany Williams (UCSD). Women probabilists, International Symposium in Statistics w http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/SPA2009/ especially young researchers and advanced (ISS) on Inferences in Generalized Linear Featuring two IMS Medallion Lectures, graduate students, are invited to participate. Longitudinal Mixed Models (GLLMM) from Claudia Klüppelberg and Gordon To register, and for information on how July 20–22, 2009 Slade, a Lévy Lecture from Amir Dembo, to apply for support for lodging and local Memorial University, St John’s, Canada and a Doob Lecture from Ed Perkins. expenses, go to the conference web page w www.iss-2009-stjohns.ca Organizing committee chair: Jochen above. Funding for this conference comes The objective of this ISS is to bring together Blath; co-chair: Peter Imkeller. from an NSF Research Training Grant a set of speakers and discussants to describe IMS Reps to Program Committee: to the probability group at Cornell, so the latest research such as parametric and David Aldous, Martin Barlow, Gérard Ben preference will be given to supporting US non-parametric inferences in this emerg- Arous, Mu-Fa Chen, Anna de Masi, Hans citizens, nationals, and permanent residents. ing area with applications to Biostatistics, Föllmer, Luis Gorostiza, Dmitry Kramkov, For questions about local arrangements, Econometrics, and Ecological and Russ Lyons, Claudia Neuhauser, Ed contact the conference secretary, Rick Environmental studies, among others. Waymire, and Ofer Zeitouni. Durrett, [email protected] 18 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Other Meetings Around the World: Announcements and Calls for Papers

Lectures on Probability and Stochastic Processes (LPS) International Conference on Recent Development in Statistical November 20–24, 2008 NEW Sciences NEW ISI, Kolkata, India December 26–27, 2008 w http://www.isical.ac.in/~LPSIII/index.html North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh The lecture series on Probability and Stochastic Processes is held Jointly Organized by Carleton University, Canada and North South annually in various different centres of the Indian Statistical University, Bangladesh Institute. This workshop series is in its third year. Our main goal is Local Contact: Dr. Abdul Hannan Chowdhury t +8802 9885611- to generate more collaboration and to make the community aware 20 ext. 251 or +880 171 306 3097 (Mobile); f +8802 880- of the current research ares in the field. More information in the 28823030; e [email protected] or nsustatconf@northsouth. series may be found at w http://www.isid.ac.in/~antar/Conferences/ edu LPS/index.html w http://www.sci.usq.edu.au/staff/khans/stat-conf-2008.pdf

BISP6: Sixth Workshop on Bayesian Inference in Stochastic Processes Complex Models and Computational Methods for Estimation and June 18–20, 2009 Prediction (S.Co.2009) NEW Accademia Cusano, Bressanone/Brixen (BZ), Italy NEW September 14–16, 2009 w www.mi.imati.cnr.it/conferences/bisp6.html Politecnico di Milano e [email protected] w http://mox.polimi.it/sco2009 Deadline for paper submission: 15 December, 2008 The aim of the S.Co. conferences is to provide a forum for the dis- The workshop follows the ones held in Madrid in 1998, in Varenna cussion of new developments and applications of statistical models in 2001, La Manga in 2003, Varenna in 2005 and Valencia in and computational methods for complex and high dimensional 2007. The workshop is now held every other year, once in Italy and data. S.Co.2009 follows the S.Co. conferences held in Venice once in Spain. (1999), Brixen (2001), Treviso (2003), Brixen (2005) and Venice In this workshop, we will bring together experts in the field to (2007); as in the previous editions, the conference will consist of review, discuss and explore directions of development of Bayesian invited lectures, organized and contributed sessions and poster Inference in Stochastic Processes and in the use of Stochastic presentations. Processes for Bayesian Inference. There will be sessions on Markov A non exhaustive list of the subject areas covered in the confer- processes, state-space models, spatial, empirical, birth-death and ence includes: Dynamic models: computational methods and appli- branching processes. Theoretical and applied contributions (for cations; Computational methods and Bayesian statistics; Design example queueing, population modelling, signal processing) are and analysis of complex surveys; Statistical methods in machine both welcome. The workshop will thus be of interest to workers in learning; Functional data analysis; Methods for multidimensional both Bayesian Inference and Stochastic Processes. The workshop analysis of complex data; Time series and spatial modeling; will be held in an informal environment (Accademia Cusano), to Statistical methods for technology; Likelihood inference in complex encourage discussion and promote further research in these fields. models. The workshop will be held in the city of Bressanone (Brixen in A one page abstract should be submitted by April 4th, 2009 German), in the Italian Alps, close to the Austrian border. through the conference website. The Scientific Committee will The workshop, endorsed by ISBA (International Society for notify authors of the acceptance of the paper by April 18th, 2009. Bayesian Analysis) and SIS (Italian Statistical Society), is orga- After acceptance, a short paper of at most 6 pages should be sub- nized by CNR IMATI in cooperation with George Washington mitted through the conference website by June 20th, 2009. University. November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 19

NEW 20 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

New and Forthcoming Books from Cambridge!

Forthcoming… Forthcoming… Synthetic CDOs Trends in Stochastic Principles of Modeling, Valuation and Analysis Statistical Inference Risk Management Edited by Jochen Blath, D. R. Cox C. C. Mounﬁ eld Peter Mörters, and Mathematics, Finance Michael Scheutzow and Risk London Mathematical Society $90.00: Hb: 978-0-521-89788-4: Lecture Note Series 408 pp. $76.00: Pb: 978-0-521-71821-9: 384 pp. Forthcoming… Digital Image Processing for A World of Chance Medical Applications Betting on Religion, Geoff Dougherty Games, Wall Street $89.00: Hb: 978-0-521-86085-7: 480 pp. Reuven Brenner, Gabrielle A. Brenner, and Aaron Brown “Cox’s Principles aims to describe Price and $90.00: Hb: 978-0-521-88466-2 $29.99: Pb: 978-0-521-71157-9: and discuss fundamental tenets of Quantity 352 pp. statistical inference without deriving Index Numbers or proving anything. The result, a Models for Measuring Aggregate Change and Partial Differential no-math tour through all of the Difference Equations for major results, clearly achieves this Bert M. Balk Probabilists aim and does so without ‘dumbing $85.00: Hb: 978-0-521-88907-0: down’ the subject in the least. There 304 pp. Daniel W. Stroock Cambridge Studies in are equations, used when equations Advanced Mathematics are naturally needed to explain Forthcoming… 2nd $55.00: Hb: 978-0-521-88651-2: something. The point is not to show 230 pp. The Concepts Edition the reader how to do mathematical and Practice of statistics, but rather to explain Mathematical A Course 10th to the reader what principles are Finance of Pure Edition involved in the process and why Mark S. Joshi Mathematics they are important. The focus is Mathematics, Finance Centenary edition on the thinking rather than the and Risk G. H. Hardy mathematics.” $80.00: Hb: 978-0-521-51408-8: Foreword by T. W. Körner 525 pp. —Biometrics Cambridge Mathematical Library $80.00: Hb: 978-0-521-86673-6: 236 pp. $45.00: Pb: 978-0-521-72055-7: $36.99: Pb: 978-0-521-68567-2 530 pp. Prices subject to change.

1-800-872-7423 www.cambridge.org/us/mathematics November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 21

Communicating Complex Statistical Evidence NEW Second International Conference on Quantitative and Qualitative January 8–9, 2009 Methodologies in the Economic and Administrative Sciences Statistical Laboratory, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, May 24–26, 2009 NEW UK Technological Educational Institution of Athens, Greece w www. ccseconf.org w http://www.teiath.gr/sdo/de/page_nea_EN_r/home.htm A Conference sponsored by the Cambridge Statistics Initiative and In today’s world of technology, the quantitative and qualitative the Winton Programme for the Public Understanding of Risk. methods are important tools for the improvement of quality of Complex statistical models and reasoning can play a major role products, services and decision making in all kinds of business. in informing both policy and individual decisions, but it is not Quantitative techniques are applied at every stage of operation of necessarily straightforward to communicate what may be rather a public or private company such as production, sales, accounting, subtle statistical issues. This conference will bring together people finance, personnel management and public relations. interested in techniques to maximize the credibility and impact of Using quantitative and qualitative methods, management can statistical science in a range of important contexts, including health analyze data, identify trends and relationships between different policy, climate change projections and impact, crime and the law, operations of a company and can predict the performance of the and epidemic control. company on the face of uncertain conditions. There will be a single strand with no parallel sessions. The conference will provide an opportunity for researchers in all Contributed posters on a topic relevant to the overall meeting areas of quantitative and qualitative techniques, academic statisti- theme are invited. cians, and other professionals from statistical and other related Speakers (alphabetically) will include: Andrew Coburn (Risk fields to come together and to present papers with innovative Management Solutions); Sir David Cox (University of Oxford); applications of statistical methods in the economic, the industrial Christl Donnelly (Imperial College London); Ian Evett (Forensic world, and the administrative sector of business. Specifically, the Science Service); Stephen Fienberg (Carnegie-Mellon); Chris conference will include topics on application of quantitative and Gilligan (Plant Sciences, Cambridge); Chris Hope (Judge Business qualitative methods in economics, social sciences, health sciences, School, Cambridge); David MacKay (Physics, Cambridge); David and decision sciences. Sexton (Hadley Centre); Lawrence Sherman (Cambridge Institute Registration fees, which include the proceedings of the confer- of Criminology); and Simon Thompson (Medical Research ence, are 80€ (students 40€) Council-Biostatistics Unit). Deadlines: 1 February 2009 Submission of abstracts (final Contributions and enquiries may be directed to arciris@statslab. deadline). 20 February 2009. Reply from the Scientific Committee cam.ac.uk regarding acceptance or not of paper. 20 March 2009. Submission A charge of £60 for registration (£45 for students and conces- of complete paper. sions) will apply, including a conference dinner on Thursday night. Excursions: An excursion to Delphi, Sounion or Hydra is planned for 27th, May 2009. The details of this excursion will be ISF Research Workshop on Random Matrices and Integrability: From given in subsequent announcements. A Greek dinner will be given Theory to Applications NEW on the second date of the Conference at low prices in the magnifi- March 25–30, 2009 cent suburb of Athens, Plaka. Yad Hashmona, Judean Hills, Israel Contact: Chris Frangos, 7 Tepeleniou Street, Iraklio Attikis, PC w http://www.hit.ac.il/staff/kanzieper/yad8 14121, Athens, Greece. t 0030 2102833756 f 0030 2102833756 e [email protected] Prague Stochastics 2010 NEW August 30 – September 3, 2010. Prague, Czech Republic ICCS-X: Tenth Biennial Islamic Countries Conference on Statistical w www.utia.cas.cz/pragstoch2010 Sciences NEW e [email protected] December 20–23, 2009 Prague Stochastics 2010 is the next in a series of international The American University in Cairo (AUC), New Cairo, Egypt conferences on stochastics organized in Prague since 1956. The w http://www.isoss.com.pk/iccsx.htm scientific programme will be aimed at covering a wide range of Local Contact: Professor Ali S. Hadi e [email protected] stochastics, with special emphasis on the topics of this lively field t +202-2615-2192. ISOSS homepage: w http://www.isoss.com.pk which have been pursued in Prague. ISOSS Secretariat e [email protected] 22 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Employment Opportunities around the world

Our online job boards allow employers and job seekers to have the most up-to-date information at their fingertips. The service is free to job seekers. To search job openings online, log on to http://jobs.imstat.org and click on "View Jobs" If you have a job to advertise, go to the same webpage and click on "Post a Job". A single 30-day online job posting costs just $175.00, and we also include the basic information about your job ad here in the IMS Bulletin at no extra charge. The advertising service is open to all employers in the area of statistics and probability, both academic and non-academic.

USA: California USA: Massachusetts University of California, San Diego Assistant/Associate Professor of Biostatistics Tenured/Tenure-Track Professorship – 7/1/2009: The Department Department of Biostatistics of Mathematics at the University of California, San Diego, is seek- Harvard School of Public Health ing outstanding candidates to fill approximately 6 tenure track/ The Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public tenured positions to start July 2009, pending funding approval. Health (HSPH) seeks outstanding candidates for the position of We encourage applications from any area of pure mathematics, assistant or associate professor of biostatistics. This is a tenure- applied mathematics, or statistics. The level for the large majority ladder position, with the academic rank to be determined in accor- of these positions is at the Assistant Professor level, however, one or dance with the successful candidate’s experience and productivity. two positions are available for distinguished mathematicians with The successful applicant will be expected to conduct research exceptional research records of the highest caliber. and teaching in the Department of Biostatistics. While the position Applicants for all positions must possess a Ph.D. and should is not tied to any particular application area or project, candidates have outstanding accomplishments in both research and teaching. with interests in AIDS research are particularly encouraged to Level of appointment will be based on qualifications with appropri- apply. Applicants should have a strong doctoral record or degree in ate salary per UC pay scales. To receive full consideration, applica- statistics, biostatistics, or other appropriate quantitative field, and tions should be submitted online through http://www.mathjobs.org/ a strong track record in the pursuit of innovative methodological by November 2, 2008. For further instructions and information, research motivated by biomedical collaborations. see http://www.math.ucsd.edu/about/employment/faculty. Please send a letter of application, including a statement of In compliance with the Immigration Reform and Control current and future research interests, curriculum vitae, sample pub- Act of 1986, individuals offered employment by the University lications, and the names of four referees to the following address. of California will be required to show documentation to prove Applicants should ask their four referees to write independently to identity and authorization to work in the United States before this address. The electronic submission of application documents to hiring can occur. UCSD is an equal opportunity/affirmative action the email below is welcome. employer with a strong institutional commitment to the achieve- Chair, Search Committee for Assistant/Associate Professor ment of diversity among its faculty and staff. of Biostatistics All applications should include the following items: c/o Vickie Beaulieu * 3 Reference Letters (Writers should upload their reference let- Department of Biostatistics ters to mathjobs.org or send them under separate cover; at least Harvard School of Public Health one letter should address teaching experience in some depth.) 655 Huntington Avenue, 4th Floor * 1 Cover Letter Boston, MA 02115 * 1 Curriculum Vitae Email: [email protected] * 1 Publications List * 1 Research Statement Harvard University is committed to increasing representation of * 1 Teaching Statement, and optionally a statement about contri- women and minority members among its faculty and particularly butions to diversity. encourages applications from such candidates.

::: Advertise current job opportunities for only $175 for 30 days ::: See http://jobs.imstat.org for details ::: November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 23

Australia: Sydney, NSW Hong Kong: Kowloon University of Sydney The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor (Lecturer) Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4774432 Operations Management Tenure-track Assistant Professor Canada: St. John’s, NF Applications are invited for a tenure-track Assistant Professor Memorial University of Newfoundland position in Statistics starting July 1, 2009. Appointment at a Assistant Professor in Statistics senior level could be made for applicants with exceptionally strong http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4817593 credentials. Demonstrated or potential excellence in research and teaching, and a doctoral degree by the time of appointment are Canada: Waterloo, ON required. University of Waterloo The group in statistics, which is housed in the School of Biostatistics: Tenure Track Assistant/Associate Open Level Professor Business and Management, is also heavily involved in a new http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4816136 undergraduate degree program in Risk Management and Business Intelligence. Applicants with prior business school experience or Canada: Waterloo, ON interests in business related statistical research (e.g. data mining, University of Waterloo financial time series, risk management, etc), are especially welcome. Biostatistics: Full Professor Salary will be highly competitive. Fringe benefits include, medi- http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4815799 cal insurance, housing benefits and family educational allowances, subject to eligibility. Applications will be accepted until positions Canada: Waterloo, ON are filled. Those received by December 1, 2008 will receive full University of Waterloo consideration. Statistics: Tenure Track - Full Professor Please submit a CV, the names and addresses of 3 referees to: http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4815788 Recruitment Committee of Statistics Group Department of Information Systems, Business Statistics and Canada: Waterloo, ON Operations Management University of Waterloo The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Actuarial Science: Lecturer Clear Water Bay, Kowloon http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4815747 HONG KONG Email: [email protected] Canada: Waterloo, ON Fax: (852) 2358-2421 University of Waterloo Actuarial Science: Tenure Track (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4815731 Spain: Barcelona Universitat Pompeu Fabra Italy: Rome Faculty appointments at the level of tenure-track Assistant Professor LUISSW Guido Carli University http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4826036 Assistant Professor in Statistics http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4792334 Taiwan: Taipei Institute of Statistical Science, Academia Sinica Saudi Arabia: Thuwal Assistant Research Fellow, Associate Research Fellow or Research Stanford University Fellow (Researcher) Faculty Position (Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4722884 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4841074 United Kingdom: Durham University of Durham Lecturer in Statistics http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4822993

::: Search our online database of the latest jobs around the world for free at http://jobs.imstat.org ::: 24 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

Employment Opportunities around the world USA: Delaware ESTIMATE #UDEL_4193ASSTPROF-FRE PUBLICATION: IMS BULLETIN

One of the oldest institutions of higher education in this coun- DATE(S) OF RUN: NOVEMBER ISSUE try, the University of Delaware today combines tradition and DEADLINE: OCTOBER 1 innovation, offering students a rich heritage along with the latest in instructional and research technology. The University of Delaware is a Land-Grant, Sea-Grant, Urban-Grant and Space-Grant institution with its main campus in Newark, DE, located halfway between Washington, DC and New York City. Please visit our website at www.udel.edu. Assistant or Associate Professor Rate $495.00 Statistics/Biostatistics Processing fee $ 13.27 Total: $508.27 The Statistics Program at the Department of Food and Resource Economics invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track position beginning in September 2009, at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor without tenure. The position is a 9-month appointment.

RESPONSIBILITIES: Research: The successful candidate is expected to establish and maintain an active and nationally recognized, independent research program in Biostatistics or Statistics. Collaboration with other faculty and/or professionals is strongly encouraged, especially in the fields of biology, bioinformatics or economics. Candidates are expected to be actively involved in multidisciplinary research projects especially in collaboration with the Delaware Biotechnology Institute and others. The University of Delaware offers a broad range of opportunities for collaborations involving large, complex data sets. At least one element of the candidate’s research program must contribute to the College’s local, regional, and/or national research priorities.

Teaching: The candidate will be responsible for teaching up to four courses per year in the Statistics Program that contribute to the graduate and undergraduate curriculum. Academic advisement of both undergraduate and graduate students is required. Departmental service as well as service to the profession is strongly encouraged.

QUALIFICATIONS: Ph.D. in Statistics or Biostatistics. Successful candidates are expected to have demonstrated excellence in research and have a dedicated interest in high quality teaching at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Candidates with research interest in all areas will be considered; however, preference will be given to those with a demonstrated interest in biological applications.

SALARY: University of Delaware salaries and fringe benefit packages are highly competitive.

CONTACT: Send a letter of interest, curriculum vitae, one-page statement of research interests, a sample of research, and the contact information for at least three references to Lidia Rejto, Chair FREC/STAT Faculty Search Committee, Statistics Program, Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716-2130. Review of applications will begin on December 1, 2008. The curriculum vitae and all application materials shall be shared with departmental faculty.

The UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE is an Equal Opportunity Employer which encourages applications from Minority Group Members and Women.

::: Advertise current job opportunities for only $175 for 30 days ::: See http://jobs.imstat.org for details ::: November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 25

United Kingdom: London USA: Santa Barbara, CA Imperial College London University of California Chair in Statistics (Professor) Assistant Professor Applied Statistics (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4775541 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4720243

USA: Tucson, AZ USA: Washington DC The University of Arizona, Department of Mathematics American University Tenure-track Statistics (Assistant Professor) Assistant or Associate Professor (Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4788994 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4778181

USA: Berkeley, CA USA: Ames, IA University of California, Berkeley Iowa State University VIGRE Postdoc (Postdoctoral Fellowship) Tenure-track faculty position (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4833294 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4813743

USA: Berkeley, CA USA: Iowa City, IA University of California, Berkeley University of Iowa Visiting Neyman Assistant Professor Assistant Professor of Statistics http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4833279 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4784308

USA: Berkeley, CA USA: Chicago, IL University of California, Berkeley University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business Tenure-track or Tenure Position (Open Level Professor) Assistant/Associate Professor of Econometrics and Statistics http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4833232 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4813047

USA: Davis, CA USA: Chicago, IL University of California, Davis University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Mathematics Tenure-Track Assistant or Tenured Associate or Full Professor Asst/Assoc/Full Professor (Open Level Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4723930 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4790664

USA: La Jolla, CA USA: Chicago, IL University of California, San Diego, Department of Mathematics University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of Mathematics SEW Assistant Professor Research Assistant Professor (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4710205 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4790657

USA: Los Angeles, CA USA: West Lafayette, IN University of California, Los Angeles Purdue University Faculty/Temp. Faculty (Professor) Asst/Assoc/Full Professor (Open Level Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4573636 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4826587

USA: Riverside, CA USA: West Lafayette, IN University of California, Riverside Purdue University Assistant Professor in Statistics Assistant/Associate Professor http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4826611 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4824899

::: Search our online database of the latest jobs around the world for free at http://jobs.imstat.org ::: 26 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9 November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 27

USA: Boston, MA USA: New York, NY Boston University New York University Assistant/Associate Professor of Statistics Assistant Research Scientist (Researcher) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4813596 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4826341

USA: Cambridge, MA USA: New York, NY MIT Mathematics Dept Columbia University Instructor-Faculty positions (Open Level Professor) Assistant Professor (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4742456 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4780869

USA: Rockville, MD USA: Syracuse, NY NICHD Syracuse University Branch Chief (Director) Tenure track faculty Position (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4723806 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4809514

USA: Ann Arbor, MI USA: Bethlehem, PA University of Michigan Lehigh University Assistant to Professor (Assistant Professor) Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Statistics (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4807593 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4815171

USA: Minneapolis, MN USA: Pittsburgh, PA University of Minnesota Carnegie Mellon University, Dept. of Statistics Assistant Professor (Assistant Professor) Tenure-track, lecturer and visiting faculty (Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4719159 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4715152

USA: Minneapolis, MN USA: College Station, TX University of Minnesota Texas A&M University Associate/Full Professor (Open Level Professor) Research Scientist (Postdoctoral Fellowship) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4719176 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4833052

USA: Durham, NC USA: Salt Lake City, UT Duke Statistical Science University of Utah, Department of Mathematics Assistant Professor (Assistant Professor) Tenure/Tenure-Track (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4815176 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4702263

USA: Raleigh, NC USA: Blacksburg, VA North Carolina State University Virginia Tech Assistant/Associate/Full Professor (Open Level Professor) Tenure-track Statistics/Biostatistics (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4837228 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4818545

USA: Research Triangle Park, NC USA: Seattle, WA Statistical and Applied Mathematics Sciences Institute Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Post Doc Fellowships for 2009-10 (Postdoctoral Fellowship) Biostatistician Faculty Position (Researcher) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4815717 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4677934

USA: Research Triangle Park, NC USA: Madison, WI Statistical and Applied Mathematics Sciences Institute University of Wisconsin–Madison, Dept. of Statistics Director Assistant/Associate Professor (Assistant Professor) http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4646344 http://jobs.imstat.org/c/job.cfm?site_id=1847&jb=4716341 28 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9 International Calendar of Statistical Events IMS meetings are highlighted in maroon with the logo and new or updated entries have the NEW symbol. t means telephone, f fax, e email and w website. Please submit your meeting details and any corrections to Elyse Gustafson at [email protected]

November 2008 Stochastic Processes (LPS). w http://www. in Statistical Sciences. Abdul Hannan isical.ac.in/~LPSIII/index.html Chowdhury e [email protected] w November 3–5: Lodz, Poland. 27th Annual http://www.sci.usq.edu.au/staff/khans/stat- Conference on Multivariate Statistical conf-2008.pdf Analysis (MSA’08). Czeslaw Domanski e December 2008 [email protected] w http://www.msa.uni.lodz. December 27–30: Indian School of Busi- pl December 1–3: Hanoi, Vietnam. 2008 ness, Hyderabad, India. International International Conference on Applied Conference on Business Data Mining. For November 5–7: Vigo, Spain. Probability and Statistics (CAPS 2008). details, contact S.B. Rao e siddanib@yahoo. ISNI2008: International Seminar on Non- w http://www.action-m.com/CAPS2008/ co.in or C.R. Rao e [email protected] parametric Inference. w www.isni2008.com December 5–6: Berlin, Germany. Sparsity November 12–14: Leuven, Belgium. and Inverse Problems in Statistical Theory January 2009 International Workshop on Flexible and Econometrics. w http://pluto.mscc.huji. Modelling: Smoothing and Robustness ac.il/~yaacov/SparsityWorkshop/ January 4–10: CRM, Montréal. Random (FMSR 2008). w http://wis.kuleuven.be/ Functions, Random Surfaces and Interfaces stat/fmsr2008.php December 8–12: Tropicana Casino Resort, [CRM program] w http://www.crm. Atlantic City, NJ. 64th Annual Deming umontreal.ca/Mathphys2008/functions_e. NEW November 20–21: NISS, Research Conference on Applied Statistics. Walter R. shtml Triangle Park, NC. Commonalities in Young e [email protected] w http:// Unconnected Problems: Applications www.demingconference.com/ January 5–8: Washington DC. AWM Driving Theory. w www.niss.org Workshop at JMM 2009 for Women December 13–16: Rutgers University, NJ. Graduate Students and Recent PhDs November 20–21: The Courant Insti- 100th Statistical Mechanics Conference. e tute, New York University, New York. Joel Lebowitz [email protected] NEW January 8–9: Statistical Labora- Seventh Northeast Probability Seminar. tory, Centre for Mathematical Sciences, w www.math.csi.cuny.edu/probability/ December 13–17: Kansas State Cambridge, UK. Communicating Complex NortheastProbabilitySeminar Univ. Tropical Geometry and Mirror Statistical Evidence. w www. ccseconf.org Symmetry [NSF-CBMS]. w www.math.ksu. November 20–22: University of Göt- edu/~rcastano/CBMS.html January 23–25: COMSATS Institute of tingen, Germany. Conference on statistical Information Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. regularization and qualitative constraints: December 21–27: C.R. Rao Advanced Fifth International Conference on Statisti- inference algorithms, asymptotics and Institute, Hyderabad, India. International cal Sciences: Mathematics, Statistics and applications. e [email protected]. Workshop on Business Data Mining. For Applications. w http://www.ciitlahore.edu. de w http://www.stochastik.math.uni- details, contact S.B. Rao e siddanib@yahoo. pk/E-NewsLetter/Math/conference290708. goettingen.de/forschergruppe/index. co.in or C.R. Rao e [email protected] html php?id=317&language=en NEW December 26–27: North South NEW November 20–24: ISI, Kol- University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Interna- kata, India. Lectures on Probability and tional Conference on Recent Development

http://www.imstat.org/meetings November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 29

March 2009 Basawa e [email protected] and T.N. June 2009 Sriram e [email protected] w http://aaron.stat. March 14: Texas A&M University. uga.edu/news_events/symposium09/ June 5–9: University of Pennsylvania, Phila- Statistical Methods for Complex Data: delphia, USA. O-Bayes09: International Conference in honor of Raymond J. May 18–23: CRM, Montréal. Interacting Workshop on Objective Bayes Methodol- Carroll’s 60th birthday. Xihong Lin, Stochastic Particle Systems [CRM ogy. Contact Linda Zhao e lzhao@wharton. program committee chair e xlin@hsph. program] w http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/ upenn.edu w http://stat.wharton.upenn.edu/ harvard.edu. Joyce Sutherland, conference Mathphys2008/stochastics_e.shtml statweb/Conference/OBayes09/OBayes.html coordinator, t 979-845-5528 e joyce@stat. tamu.edu. w http://www.stat.tamu.edu/ NEW May 24–26: Technological Educa- June 8–13: CRM, Montréal. Disordered carroll/ tional Institution of Athens, Greece. Second Systems: Spin Glasses [CRM program] International Conference on Quantitative w http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/ March 15-18: Grand Hyatt, San and Qualitative Methodologies in the Mathphys2008/spin_e.shtml Antonio, Texas. 2009 ENAR/IMS Spring Economic and Administrative Sciences. Meeting. w www.enar.org/meetings.cfm w http://www.teiath.gr/sdo/de/page_nea_ NEW June 18–20: Accademia Cusano, EN_r/home.htm Bressanone/Brixen (BZ), Italy. BISP6: Sixth March 24–27: Tokyo, Japan. Sixth Workshop on Bayesian Inference in Sto- International Conference on Multiple May 25–29: Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, Nevada, chastic Processes. e [email protected] w Comparison Procedures. Co-chairs: USA. 14th International Conference on www.mi.imati.cnr.it/conferences/bisp6.html Chihiro Hirotsu (Meisei University, Japan) Gambling and Risk Taking. w www.unr. and Martin Posch (Medical University of edu/gaming June 21–25: Collegio Carlo Alberto, Vienna, Austria). w www.mcp-conference. Moncalieri, Italy. Seventh Workshop on org May 25–29: Bordeaux, France. 41st Annual Bayesian Nonparametrics. Conference of the French Statistical w http://bnpworkshop.carloalberto.org/ NEW March 25–30: Yad Hashmona, Society. w http://www.sm.u-bordeaux2.fr/ Judean Hills, Israel. ISF Research Work- JDS2009/index.html June 23–27: Smolenice Castle, Slovakia. shop on Random Matrices and Integrabil- IWMS’09: 18th International Workshop ity: From Theory to Applications. w http:// May 27–29: Vancouver, Canada. 2009 on Matrices and Statistics. Contact Viktor www.hit.ac.il/staff/kanzieper/yad8 Spring Research Conference on Statistics Witkovsky e [email protected] w http:// in Industry and Technology. Boxin Tang www.um.sav.sk/en/iwms2009.html e [email protected] w http://www.stat.sfu. May 2009 ca/~boxint/src2009/ June 26–29: Universita’ Degli Studi Di Milano, Italy. 10th European Confer- May 3–8: Ascona, Switzerland. Statistical May 31 – June 3: Vancouver, Canada. 2009 ence on Image Analysis and Stereology Advances in Genome-scale Data Analysis. SSC Annual Meeting. Local Arrangements: (ECS10). w http://ecs10.mat.unimi.it/ w http://stat.ethz.ch/talks/Ascona_09 Nancy Heckman (UBC). Program: Wendy Lou (Toronto) w http://www.ssc.ca/main/ UPDATED May 15–16: Athens, Georgia, meetings_e.html USA. Symposium on New Directions in Asymptotic Statistics. Organizers Ishwar

http://www.imstat.org/meetings Continues on page 30 30 . IMS Bulletin Volume 37 . Issue 9

International Calendar continued June 2009 continued

June 28–July 1: Seoul, Korea. First September 2009 August 19–27: Hyderabad, India. IMS Asia Pacific Rim Meeting. International Congress of Mathematicians Program chairs: Feifang Hu e fh6e@virginia. NEW September 14–16: Politecnico di 2010. Program Committee Chair: Prof. edu or Runze Li e [email protected] Milano. Complex Models and Computa- Hendrik W. Lenstra, Leiden University w http://ims-aprm.org/ tional Methods for Estimation and Predic- e [email protected] tion (S.Co.2009). w http://mox.polimi.it/ sco2009 NEW August 30 – September 3: Prague, July 2009 Czech Republic. Prague Stochastics 2010. e [email protected] w www.utia.cas.cz/ NEW July 6–17: Cornell University, December 2009 pragstoch2010 Ithaca, NY. Fifth Cornell Probability Summer School. w http://www.math.cornell. NEW December 20–23: The American edu/~durrett/CPSS2009/ University in Cairo (AUC), New Cairo, July 2011 Egypt. ICCS-X: Tenth Biennial Islamic July 12–15: Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Countries Conference on Statistical Sci- July 31 – August 4: Miami Beach, 2009 INFORMS Applied Probability ences. w http://www.isoss.com.pk/iccsx.htm Florida. IMS Annual Meeting at JSM2011. Society Conference. Shane Henderson and Mark Lewis. w http://appliedprob.society. informs.org/apsconf09/APS09.html May 2010 July 2012

July 20–22: Memorial University, St May 23–26: Québec City, Canada. 2010 July 29 – August 2: San Diego, John’s, Canada. International Symposium SSC Annual Meeting. Local Arrangements: California. JSM2012. in Statistics (ISS) on GLLMM. Brajendra Thierry Duchesne (Université Laval) Sutradhar e [email protected] w www. w http://www.ssc.ca/main/meetings_e.html July/August [dates TBA]: İstanbul, iss-2009-stjohns.ca Turkey. IMS Annual Meeting 2012 in conjunction with 8th World Congress in July 27–31: Berlin, Germany. 33rd July 2010 Probability and Statistics. Conference on Stochastic Processes and their Applications. Organising committee July 11–16: Ljubljana, Slovenia. ICOTS08: chair: Jochen Blath; co-chair: Peter Imkeller. Data and context in statistics education: August 2013 w http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/SPA2009/ towards an evidence-based society. w http:// icots8.org/ August 3–8: Montréal, Canada. IMS Annual Meeting at JSM2013. August 2009 August 2010 August 1–6: Washington, DC. August 2014 IMS Annual Meeting at JSM2009. IMS August 1–5: Vancouver, British Program Chairs: Michael Kosorok kosorok@ Columbia, Canada. JSM2010. August 3–7: Boston, MA. JSM2014. unc.edu and Xiaotong Shen xshen@stat. umn.edu August 9–13: Gothenburg, Sweden. w www.amstat.org/meetings/jsm/2009/ IMS Annual Meeting 2010.

http://www.imstat.org/meetings November . 2008 IMS Bulletin . 31

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No repeated digits in 1145 7 234510 a sequence. 4 1 3 295 8 7 9 913 2 7 7 2 6 4 1 21 17 894 20 989 This row sequence 6 11 10 1 2 3617 5 doesn’t add up to 8. 40 DEADLINEfor 7 8 1 965 4 819 3 5 22 892 24 13 10 submissions ...this one does! (So does 8 4 9 12 2 1 7 1,2,5 and 3,1,4 and so on) 111 2 5 3917 8 307 689312 9 November 1, Puzzle 29

2008 3 45 21 11 45 10 Please see inside 10 6 the back cover for subscription details 26 8 and information for 17 advertisers, including 14 24 all our deadlines and 6 20 4 7 requirements 22 7 42

22 12 Journal 9 23 alerts 8 14 For alerts and special 8 13 information on all the 5 13 IMS journals, sign up 15 30 at the IMS Lists site http://lists.imstat.org Puzzle by www.yoogi.com