Volume 38 • Issue 10 IMS Bulletin December 2009 Looking ahead to Gothenburg 2010 IMS Annual Meeting, Gothenburg, Sweden, August 9–13, 2010 Contents Gothenburg (Göteborg) is Sweden’s second-largest city, after Stockholm, with a 1 Looking ahead to population of half a million. It traces its origins to the seventeenth century, and to its Gothenburg strategic importance as a gateway to the west. The city has historical connections with 2–3 Members’ News: David several nations, including Scotland from where many early settlers came, and of course Donoho; Sallie Keller; New to Denmark and Norway—Gothenburg’s location encouraged trade with both these IMS contact details countries, and the city quickly developed into a major shipping port. The original city plan was drawn up by the Dutch, and for many years Gothenburg’s charter decreed 4-6 IMS Journal News that the city council should be comprised of Dutch, German, British and Swedish 7 Nominations members in equal proportions. 8 Obituary: Stephen Lagakos The city’s rich cultural activities are major attractions, including many the atres, the Museum of World Culture and the Gothenburg Film Festival. Gothenburg is home to 9 Mentoring African Researchers Liseberg, Scandinavia’s largest amusement Co & park, which is only minutes from the Renew now; SDNS Award 10 city centre. There are two universities: Terence’s Stuff: You want Gothenburg 11 The University of Gothenburg, one of of proof? the largest in Scandinavia, and Chalmers University of Technology, founded in courtesy 13 IMS meetings 1829 after a donation from William 19 Other meetings Holmner, Chalmers, a very successful trader and the Kjell 22 Employment Opportunities son of a Scottish immigrant. 27 International Calendar of The IMS Annual Meeting also prom- Photo: Statistical Events ises a multitude of attractions. Twenty- two sessions in statistics are planned, and 31 Information for Advertisers twenty-three in probability, together with seven sessions jointly in both disciplines, and several memorial sessions. There will also be two special lectures (on the topics Carl Milles’ 1931 statue of Poseidon stands in front of of climate change and finance, respec- Gothenburg’s Museum of Art. Poseidon, the Greek god tively), and the IMS’s usual smorgasbord of the sea, is often used as a symbol of this sea-port of plenary and Medallion lectures. The word smörgåsbord is borrowed from Swedish, and describes not only the great variety you will find in Gothenburg’s buffet-style restaurants, but also the many attractions that the IMS has to offer. For example, the sessions in statistics include seven under the heading Theory and Methods, five under Genetics, Health and Epidemiology, five under Computer Modelling and Computing, and five under Physical and Environmental Science. In Probability the headings include Special Processes and Models (eight sessions); Probability, Economics & Social Sciences (two sessions); Stochastic Analysis: The ory, Methods and Applications (five sessions); Statistical Physics & Disordered Sys tems (four sessions); Combinatorial & Graph Theoretic Probability (two sessions); and Continued on Page 5 IMS Bulletin 2 . IMs Bulletin Volume 38 . Issue 10 Volume 38 • Issue 10 December 2009 IMS members’ news ISSN 1544-1881 On October 9, 2009, David L. Donoho received the honorary Contact information degree of Doctor of Science from the University of Chicago. The IMS Bulletin Editor: Xuming He occasion was a Special Convocation, the 500th in the University’s Assistant Editor: Tati Howell history, and Donoho’s was one of four degrees awarded. In Contributing Editors: Peter Bickel, Louis Chen, presenting the degree, the University’s President, mathematician Rick Durrett, Nicole Lazar, Terry Speed Robert Zimmer, stated that “David L. Donoho is a mathematical To contact the IMS Bulletin: statistician, and also one of the more influential applied mathemati- IMS Bulletin cians of his generation. Building upon the discipline of statistics, 2 Lampern View, Uley, Dursley GL11 5TD Donoho has developed effective new approaches to constructing UK low-dimensional representations for modern high-dimensional data e [email protected] problems. His work provides new insight into some of the most pressing scientific questions of the present day.” To contact the IMS regarding your dues, Donoho is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in the membership, subscriptions, orders or change of address: Humanities and Sciences, and Professor, Department of Statistics, IMS Dues and Subscriptions Office Stanford University. 9650 Rockville Pike, Suite L3503A The University of Chicago awards honorary degrees only for Bethesda MD 20814-3998 distinguished scholarship. Previously, University of Chicago honor- USA ary degrees have gone to R. A. Fisher (1952), Harold Hotelling t 877-557-4674 [toll-free in USA] (1955), Jerzy Neyman (1959), Maurice S. Bartlett (1966), John W. t +1 216 295 5661[international] Tukey (1969), Fred Mosteller (1973), Erich L. Lehmann (1989), f +1 301 634 7099 e [email protected] Charles M. Stein (1992), Ulf Grenander (1994), Bradley Efron (1995), David Aldous (2000), Persi Diaconis (2003), and Grace To contact the IMS regarding any other Wahba (2007). matter, including advertising, copyright David Donoho and the Chicago Department of Statistics (from left, Peter McCullagh, Dan Nicolae, Mathias Drton, permission, offprint orders, copyright David Wallace, Ron Thisted, David Donoho, Michael Stein, Stephen Stigler, Mary Sara McPeek, Steve Lalley, Debashis transfer, societal matters, meetings, fellows Mondal, Mei Wang) nominations and content of publications: Executive Director, Elyse Gustafson IMS Business Office PO Box 22718, Beachwood OH 44122, USA t 877-557-4674 [toll-free in USA] t +1 216 295 5661[international] f +1 216 295 5661 e [email protected] Executive Committee President: J. Michael Steele [email protected] President-Elect: Peter Hall [email protected] Past President: Nanny Wermuth [email protected] Treasurer: Rong Chen [email protected] Program Secretary: Guenther Walther [email protected] Executive Secretary: Marten Wegkamp [email protected] IMS Editors December . 2009 IMs Bulletin . 3 IMS Journals and Publications Annals of Statistics: Susan Murphy & Bernard Silverman http://imstat.org/aos Annals of Applied Statistics: Bradley Efron, Stephen Fienberg, Michael Newton & Michael Stein http://imstat.org/aoas The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Annals of Probability: Ofer Zeitouni at Iowa State University honored Sallie http://imstat.org/aop Keller with the John V. Atanasoff Research Annals of Applied Probability: and Discovery Award at the ISU Alumni http://imstat.org/aap Statistical Science: David Madigan Association’s awards ceremony on Friday, http://imstat.org/sts Oct. 16, 2009. This award was established IMS Lecture Notes – Monograph Series: Anirban DasGupta in 2005 to honor alumni of the college http://imstat.org/publications/lecnotes.htm IMS Collections: Anirban DasGupta who have furthered scientific knowledge of http://imstat.org/publications/ the nation and the world, either through imscollections.htm laboratory accomplishments and/or man- NSF-CBMS Regional Conference Series in Probability and Statistics: http://imstat.org/publications/nsf.htm agement. Sallie Keller is the William and IMS Co-sponsored Journals and Publications Stephanie Sick Dean of Engineering and Electronic Journal of Statistics: Larry Wasserman Professor of Statistics in the George Brown http://imstat.org/ejs School of Engineering at Rice University. Electronic Journal of Probability: Bálint Tóth http://www.math.washington.edu/~ejpecp She has widely published and is co-author Sallie Ann Keller Electronic Communications in Probability: of a book entitled Introduction to Probability Timo Seppäläinen and Systems Modeling. Her areas of research http://www.math.washington.edu/~ejpecp /ECP/index.php are uncertainty quantification, computational and graphical statistics and related software Current Index to Statistics: George Styan and modeling techniques, and data access and confidentiality. Her leadership experience http://www.statindex.org spans the academy, industry, and government. Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics: David van Dyk Keller was a group leader for statistical sciences at Los Alamos National Laboratory http://www.amstat.org/publications/jcgs from 1998–2005. She was professor and director of graduate studies in the University of Statistics Surveys: Jon Wellner Kansas Department of Statistics from 1996–98. She held a joint research fellowship of the http://imstat.org/ss Probability Surveys: Geoffrey Grimmett American Statistical Association, National Science Foundation (NSF), and Bureau of Labor http://imstat.org/ps Statistics from 1996–97 and served as program director for Statistics and Probability in the Division of Mathematical Sciences of the NSF from 1994–96. IMS Supported Journals Annales de l'Institut Henri Poincaré (B): Alice Guionnet Keller, who was named a Fellow of the American Association of the Advancement of http://imstat.org/aihp Science in 2005, received the American Statistical Association’s Founders Award in 2002. Bayesian Analysis: Brad Carlin She was also named a National Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 2002 and http://ba.stat.cmu.edu Bernoulli: Holger Rootzén a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1997. She was president and chairman http://isi.cbs.nl/bernoulli of the board of directors of the American Statistical Association