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 promot- ing 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 trumpeter Niklaswww.niklaseklund.com trumpeter of Eklund,from Photo 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.