Highlighting the ASA Presidential Address and Awards Ceremony during the Joint Statistical Meetings in Washington, DC, were the announcement of the Founders Award winners and the official induction of 57 ASA Fellows.

Founders

The Founders Award is given for extended, outstanding service to the statistics profession through a variety of leadership roles. As in prior years, the names of the winners remained a closely held secret until the ceremony. The 2009 Founders Award winners are Stephen E. Feinberg, June Morita, Bob Rodriguez, W. Robert Stephenson, and Jessica Utts.

Feinberg

Stephen E. Feinberg of Carnegie Mellon University for outstanding leadership and contributions in Bayesian approaches to the analysis of contingency tables, confidentiality and data disclosure, and legal decisionmaking; for distinguished service on the ASA Board of Directors, including his role as vice president; for long-term active involvement in ASA committees and remarkable leadership and participation in sister organizations; for superior editorial activities past and present, including editor of Annals of Applied Statistics and Statistical Science and co-editor of CHANCE; and for exceptional service and leadership in a wide variety of professional and government-related consultant activities.

Morita

June Morita of the University of Washington for outstanding leadership; for energetic service to the association as chapter president, regional vice chair, and chair of the Council of Chapters and a member of the Council of Sections Governing Board, the Board of Directors, and numerous committees; for initiating, promoting, and sustaining effective programs to enhance quantitative and statistical literacy in schools nationally and internationally, including Making Sense of Statistical Studies and programs to prepare undergraduates as mathematics/statistics tutors in middle schools; and for setting a standard of fun and excitement to the Council of Chapters activities at association meetings.

Rodriguez

Bob Rodriguez of the SAS Institute for extraordinary leadership and service in crafting the ASA Strategic Plan and for obtaining a broad consensus for its implementation; for serving as a vice president of the ASA; for editorial services to the association; for playing a critical role in software development for linear models and statistical quality improvement at SAS; for serving as the editor-in-chief of the ASA-SIAM Series on Statistics and Applied Probability and as an associate editor for The American Statistician; and for serving in leadership roles in the Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences and on the Committee on Publications.

Stephenson

W. Robert Stephenson of Iowa State University for sustained and outstanding efforts to foster the improvement of statistics teaching through distinguished editorial work with the Journal of Statistics Education and as chair of the Advisory Committee on Teacher Enhancement; for effective outreach to students by guiding the development of STATS magazine, serving as “Dr. Stats,” and directing Mu Sigma Rho; for service to the association as a section chair, chapter president, and on many committees; and for being an inspiring role model throughout an award-winning career as a statistics educator.

Utts

Jessica Utts of the University of California, Irvine, for leadership on many ASA committees and the Statistical Education and Bayesian Statistical Science sections; for extraordinary service in the development of the ASA’s Strategic Plan; for editorial service to The American Statistician and the Journal of the American Statistical Association; and for her outstanding commitment to the profession through leadership roles in NISS, CAUSE, AAAS, WNAR, and COPSS.