Bob Newcomb

The Orange County/Long Beach, San Diego, and Southern California chapters—three chapters in which the late Bob Newcomb played vital roles—sponsored a statistical tribute to him November 15, 2014, at the City of Hope Medical Center in Duarte, California.

The morning session, organized by Harold Dyck of California State University, San Bernardino, featured several of Newcomb’s former students and colleagues, each speaking movingly of his influence as a builder of statistical community at both local and national levels.

At the University of California, Irvine, where he taught statistics for more than 40 years, Newcomb was the founding director of the UCI Center for Statistical Consulting, and he played a critical role in the establishment of the department of statistics in 2002. In 2012, the department established an annual lecture and the Robert L. Newcomb Graduate Fellowship Fund in his honor.

As president of the ASA’s Southern California Chapter in the 1970s, Newcomb inaugurated the annual Applied Statistics Workshop, featuring nationally prominent statisticians. Later, he initiated the chapter’s annual Career Day. He also facilitated the creation of the San Diego and Orange County/Long Beach chapters to better serve local needs in the Southern California area while encouraging the three regional chapters to engage in joint activities when advantageous to do so.

At the national level, Newcomb served at various times as an officer of the ASA’s Council of Chapters Governing Board, the Statistical Graphics Section, and the ASA Committee on Career Development, as well as the JSM Committee on Meetings. The ASA named him a Fellow in 2003, recognizing his “service as an outstanding ambassador of the statistics profession through passionate and inspirational teaching, by mentoring students, and extraordinary contributions at the local and national levels; and for skill, leadership, and vision in consulting.”

The afternoon presentations, organized by Subir Ghosh of the University of California, Riverside, highlighted some of Bob’s particular professional interests: statistical computing, consulting, and cross-disciplinary collaboration. The presenters were Robert N. Rodriguez (“An Insider’s Perspective on the Development of SAS Statistical Software”), Duane Steffey (“Statistical Consulting in Industry”), Karen Messer (“Statistical Issues in Prognostic Modeling in Cancer Recurrence”), and Danh V. Nguyen (“Clinical and Translational Research: Rich Interactions, Interdisciplinary Teams, Mentoring”).

This statistical tribute was a heartfelt celebration of the enormous impact Newcomb had on many statisticians (and on many people in other fields who work with statisticians) as a teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend. Fittingly, the collaboration of the three chapters embodied Newcomb’s vision for the regional statistical community. He will be missed.