Meenakshi Devidas

University of Florida (UF) biostatistician Meenakshi Devidas was recently named group statistician of the Children’s Oncology Group, the world’s largest organization devoted exclusively to pediatric cancer research.

Devidas will lead the Statistics and Data Center, which provides statistical expertise for the Children’s Oncology Group’s research studies. She also serves as the principal investigator of a National Cancer Institute grant supporting the center beginning March 1with a planned budget of $39 million over five years.

The Children’s Oncology Group, a National Cancer Institute–funded cooperative group, brings together more than 8,000 researchers at more than 200 children’s hospitals, universities, and cancer centers across North America, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. About 90 percent of the 13,500 children and adolescents diagnosed with cancer each year in the United States are cared for at Children’s Oncology Group member institutions.

“I’ve worked with the group for a long time and I’m really excited about my new role and helping the Children’s Oncology Group move forward with its research agenda,” said Devidas, a research associate professor in the department of biostatistics at the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions and the UF College of Medicine. Devidas, a member of the UF Health Cancer Center, has worked in pediatric oncology research for 16 years.

In her role as group statistician, Devidas supervises about 60 Children’s Oncology Group faculty and staff located at the University of Florida, the University of Southern California, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Harvard University. Statisticians are involved in every phase of Children’s Oncology Group clinical trials, including study design, data management, safety and efficacy monitoring, and analysis of results. There are more than 100 Children’s Oncology Group studies being conducted at any given time on the underlying biology of childhood cancers, new treatments, supportive care, and survivorship.

Devidas also serves on the Children’s Oncology Group scientific council, which evaluates new study proposals and sets the group’s research priorities, and is lead statistician for the group’s acute lymphoblastic leukemia research committee. Her research focuses on developing optimal methods for trials with a small number of target participants. Patients in some Children’s Oncology Group studies may be assigned to clinical trials based on factors such as type of disease, risk factors, and particular gene mutations.

“These classifications result in very small numbers of patients being available for clinical trials for each of these studies, so you have to come up with some innovative designs,” Devidas said. “The traditional trial designs may not work.”

A state-of-the-art statistics and data center for such a large research enterprise is key to the Children’s Oncology Group’s future success, said Peter C. Adamson, group chair of the Children’s Oncology Group and a professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“What we needed when we were looking for a new group statistician is someone who would be able to lead and harmonize a group of very talented people to help us in this research mission,” Adamson said. “Dr. Devidas is clearly a leader who can both organize the logistics of such a large research enterprise on the data management side, but as importantly understands childhood cancer research and knows how best to apply resources and methods to answer the important questions.”

Stephen Fienberg

ASA member and Carnegie Mellon University statistics and social science professor Stephen Fienberg was appointed January 14 to the newly created National Commission on Forensic Science by the U.S. Department of Justice and National Institute of Standards and Technology. Fienberg and other commission members will work to improve the practice of forensic science by developing guidance concerning intersections between forensic science and the criminal justice system. The ASA, cheap ativan canada which has advocated for forensic science reform, nominated Fienberg for the panel. To read more about the appointment, visit the USDOJ website.

Peter Hall

The University of Cantabria, in Spain, organized a series of events throughout 2013 to commemorate the International Year of Statistics. The activities included a lecture series, a forthcoming book dedicated to the dissemination of statistics and its applications, and a series of video clips. To culminate these events, the University of Cantabria awarded an honorary doctorate to Peter Hall of the University of Melbourne. Hall is well known within the field of statistics, with many of his more than 600 publications among the most cited in the field. In addition, Hall appeared among the 10 most-cited scientists in mathematics in all reports by in-cites until they stopped running in 2008. Hall has already received this award from the universities of Lovaina (1997), Glasgow (2005), and Sidney (2009).

Franz Kafka and Chris Barker

Franz Kafka, author of The Trial, may be the Czech Republic’s most well-known author. He also may have valued statistics.

While celebrating his birthday this past December, Chris Barker, president of Statistical Planning and Analysis Services, Inc., visited the Kafka museum in Prague.

While reading one of the panels about Kafka, Barker noted a statement about Kafka working for an insurance company. A provocative detail suggested Kafka had, at one time, been in charge of a statistical unit there. “I read this near closing time,” said Barker, “and no docents or museum staff were available to ask for more details.” When he returned home, he searched the Internet for references to Kafka and statistics and found the following:

Few other details are available. “Kafka apparently was aware of the value of statistics,” said Barker. “I have not yet found confirmation that Kafka headed a statistical unit.”

Jeri Mulrow

ASA Board member and Fellow Jeri Mulrow has been appointed deputy division director of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). Mulrow, who is ASA vice president, had served as the acting deputy division director since May. Previously, she served as program director of the NCSES Information and Technology Service Program. Mulrow joined NSF in 2001 as a survey statistician in NCSES and then became a senior mathematical statistician.

Philip Stark

The Presidential Commission on Election Administration’s report endorses risk-limiting audits—a method invented and piloted by ASA member Philip Stark and endorsed by the ASA Board in 2010. President Obama established the commission following the 2012 elections and charged it with making recommendations to increase efficient administration of federal elections and improve voter experience. In the report, the commission states: “The commission endorses both risk-limiting audits that ensure the correct winner has been determined according to a sample of votes cast and performance audits that evaluate whether the voting technology performs as promised and expected.”

Carlos E. Toro Vizcarrondo

The governor of Puerto Rico has appointed Carlos E. Toro Vizcarrondo to the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics. Vizcarrondo, a longstanding ASA member, then was elected the panel’s vice president by his fellow board members. He is president of ASEP Inc. and consultant to the schools of dental medicine and nursing and the Research Institute of Behavioral Sciences of the Medical Science Campus. He serves as a private consultant in actuarial science studies, design of surveys and sampling, and econometrics analysis for private and public institutions.