Volume 50 • Issue 3 IMS Bulletin April/May 2021 International Prize in Statistics The 2021 International Prize in Statistics has been awarded to US biostatistician and CONTENTS IMS Fellow Nan Laird, Harvey V. Fineberg Professor of Biostatistics (Emerita) at 1 International Prize in Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, in recognition of her work on powerful Statistics : Nan Laird methods that have made possible the analysis of complex longitudinal studies. 2 Members’ news : Chao Gao; Thanks to Laird’s work, applied Claire McKay Bowen, Jonas researchers have been able to wring Peters, Aaditya Ramdas, detailed information from large longi- Lingzhou Xue, Alicia Carriquiry, tudinal studies—sometimes over many Wing Hung Wong, David decades, such as with the Nurses’ Health Dunson; Nicholas Jewell; Study in the US or the National Child Chengchun Shi Development Study in the UK. The 5 Anti-Asian Racism design of these studies traditionally made condemned it difficult for researchers to control for 6 Recent papers: Stochastic participants’ individual characteristics Systems and Probability Surveys while also dealing with often-sparse 7 Anirban’s Angle: What are you data from hard-to-reach populations. drinking? Laird’s work gave researchers the tools they needed, allowing them to answer 8 Previews: Axel Munk, Xin Bing; Nan Laird JSM news important questions in health, medicine, psychology and more. This jump-started the field of “random effects modeling for lon- Sound the Gong: Back on the 10 gitudinal data analysis,” and the methods Laird introduced in 1982 are still the most Road widely used techniques in both observational studies and clinical trials today. 12 Obituaries: Leo Goodman, Garrett Fitzmaurice, professor of biostatistics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Donald A.S. Fraser, Public Health, called Laird’s 1982 Biometrics paper “a statistical tour de force.” “Nan Gordon Harrington pioneered the development and application of what are now considered to be modern 15 Student Puzzle 33 (again) statistical methods for longitudinal analysis. Her work has changed how statisticians 16 IMS Elections: Meet the and empirical researchers approach the analysis of data from longitudinal studies.” candidates The International Prize in Statistics (https://statprize.org/) is awarded every two years by a collaboration among five leading international statistics organizations: IMS, 24 Meetings (including online) ASA, ISI, RSS and IBS. The prize recognizes a major achievement by an individual or 26 Employment Opportunities team in the statistics field, particularly an achievement of powerful and original ideas 27 ICIAM Prizes: Nominate now that has led to practical applications and breakthroughs in other disciplines. Laird will receive the prize, which comes with an $80,000 award, this July at the 28 Calendar of Meetings biennial International Statistical Institute World Statistics Congress, which will be held 31 Information for Advertisers virtually: see https://www.isi2021.org/. The first International Prize in Statistics was awarded in 2017 to British statistician David R. Cox for the development of the Cox proportional hazards model. US Read it online: statistician Bradley Efron received the award in 2019 for the bootstrap, a clever compu- imstat.org/news tational method for assessing uncertainty in applied statistics. Read more about Nan Laird’s work and life on page 4. Continues on page 4 IMS Bulletin 2 . IMS Bulletin Volume 50 . Issue 3 Volume 50 • Issue 3 April/May 2021 IMS Members’ News ISSN 1544-1881 2021 IMS Tweedie New Researcher Award Contact information The IMS Tweedie New Researcher Award provides funds for travel IMS Bulletin Editor: Tati Howell to present the Tweedie New Researcher Invited Lecture at the IMS [email protected] New Researchers Conference. The recipient of the 2021 Tweedie Managing Editor: Bob Keener New Researcher Award is Chao Gao. Contributing Editors: Dr. Gao is an assistant professor in statistics at the University of Radu Craiu, Anirban DasGupta, Yoram Gat, Ruobin Gong, David Hand, Takis Chicago. He was selected by the IMS Committee on Travel Awards Konstantopoulos, Xiao-Li Meng and “For groundbreaking contributions to robust statistics, including Kavita Ramanan establishing connections with generative adversarial networks, Chao Gao w https://imstat.org/news network analysis, and high-dimensional statistical inference.” https://www.facebook.com/IMSTATI https://twitter.com/InstMathStat New: COPSS Leadership Academy, for Emerging Leaders in Statistics The purpose of the new COPSS Leadership Academy is to recognize early-career statistical IMS Dues and Subscriptions Office scientists who show evidence of and potential for leadership and who will help shape and Contact the IMS regarding your dues, strengthen the field. Members are selected based on outstanding contributions to the membership, subscriptions, orders or field of statistical science in one or more of the following areas: education, training, and change of address: mentoring; original research and software development; impactful and ethical practice; and t 877-557-4674 [toll-free in USA] service to the profession and to society. Among the nine early-career t +1 216 295 2340 [international] statisticians chosen this year were four IMS members. f +1 216 295 5661 Claire McKay Bowen, Lead Data Scientist, Privacy and Security, e [email protected] at the Urban Institute: For contributions to the development and IMS Business Office broad dissemination of Statistics and Data Science methods and Executive Director, Elyse Gustafson concepts, particularly in the emerging field of Data Privacy, and for Claire McKay Bowen Contact the IMS regarding any other leadership of technical initiatives, professional development activities, matter, including advertising, copyright and educational programs. permission, offprint orders, copyright Jonas Peters, Statistics Professor in the Department of transfer, societal matters, meetings, fellows Mathematical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen: For nominations and content of publications: path-breaking contributions to statistical issues in connection with t 877-557-4674 [toll-free in USA] causality research, for an extraordinary active role in research dissemi- t +1 216 295 2340 [international] Jonas Peters nation and for outstanding inspiration of junior researchers. f +1 216 295 5661 Aaditya Ramdas, Assistant Professor in the Department of e [email protected] Statistics and Data Science, and Machine Learning Department, at Carnegie Mellon University: For significant contributions to Executive Committee sequential nonparametric inference, uncertainty quantification in machine learning, and statistical methods for reproducibility, as well as President: Regina Liu Aaditya Ramdas [email protected] the development of an array of unique courses and tutorials, along with President-Elect: Krzysztof (Chris) Burdzy extensive mentorship and outreach activities. [email protected] Lingzhou Xue, Associate Professor of Statistics, Department of Past President: Susan Murphy Statistics at Pennsylvania State University: For his innovative con- [email protected] tributions to the theory and methodology of high-dimensional statistics Treasurer: Zhengjun Zhang and statistical learning, and for his outstanding and prolific service to [email protected] Lingzhou Xue the profession and to society. Program Secretary: Ming Yuan [email protected] You can read more about the Leadership Academy and the full list of 2021 winners at Executive Secretary: Edsel Peña https://community.amstat.org/copss/awards/leadership-academy. More COPSS award [email protected] announcements on the next page! = access published papers online IMS Journals and Publications April/May . 2021 IMS Bulletin . 3 Annals of Statistics: Ming Yuan, Richard Samworth https://imstat.org/aos https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.aos Annals of Applied Statistics: Karen Kafadar https://imstat.org/aoas More Members’ News https://projecteuclid.org/aoas Annals of Probability: Amir Dembo https://imstat.org/aop Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) 2021 Awards https://projecteuclid.org/aop The Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies has announced the recipients of its Annals of Applied Probability: Francois Delarue, Peter Friz awards for 2021 (apart from the winner of the Presidents’ Award, as this is announced in https://imstat.org/aap https://projecteuclid.org/aoap the COPSS session at JSM every year.) Statistical Science: Sonia Petrone The winner of the F.N. David Award and Lectureship is Alicia https://imstat.org/sts Carriquiry, Iowa State University, “for being an outstanding role https://projecteuclid.org/ss IMS Collections model for female and Latin American statisticians and for statisticians https://projecteuclid.org/imsc striving for scientific impact; for influential Bayesian, forensics, trans- IMS Monographs and IMS Textbooks: Nancy Reid portation, and nutrition research; for effective leadership of multidis- https://www.imstat.org/journals-and- publications/ims-monographs/ ciplinary groups; for extensive engagement in the National Academies Alicia Carriquiry and professional statistical societies; and for advocacy for female and IMS Co-sponsored Journals and Publications early-career statisticians.” Winning the Distinguished Achievement Electronic Journal of Statistics: Domenico Marinucci Award and Lectureship this year is Wing Hung Wong, Stanford https://imstat.org/ejs University. His citation reads, “For his groundbreaking