Gertrude M. Cox Award

The Gertrude M. Cox Award Committee is seeking nominations for the 2017 Gertrude M. Cox Award.

The award, established in 2003 through a joint agreement between the Washington Statistical Society (WSS) and RTI International, annually recognizes a statistician in early to mid-career (fewer than 15 years after terminal degree) who has made significant contributions to one or more of the areas of applied statistics in which Gertrude Cox worked: survey methodology, experimental design, biostatistics, and statistical computing.

The award is presented at the WSS Annual Dinner, usually held in June, with the recipient delivering a talk on a topic of general interest to the WSS membership before the dinner.

The honoree is chosen by a six-person committee—three each from WSS and RTI. This year’s committee consists of Mike Larsen (co-chair), Chris Moriarity, and Linda Young from WSS and Jill Dever, Phil Kott, and Karol Krotki (co-chair) from RTI.

Included in the award is a $1,000 honorarium, paid travel expenses to attend the WSS Annual Dinner, and a commemorative WSS plaque.

Past recipients include Sharon Lohr, Alan Zaslavsky, Tom Belin, Vance Berger, Francesca Domenici, Thomas Lumley, Jean Opsomer, Michael Elliott, Nilanjan Chatterjee, Amy Herring, Frauke Kreuter, Jerome Reiter, Jae Kwang Kim, and Bhramar Mukherjee.

Email nominations to Krotki by February 28 with a supporting statement and CV (or link). If you previously nominated a candidate and wish that nomination to be reconsidered, update the supporting materials.

The award is in memory of Gertrude M. Cox (1900–1978). In 1945, Cox became director of the Institute of Statistics of the Consolidated University of North Carolina. In the 1950s, as head of the department of experimental statistics at North Carolina State College, she played a key role in establishing mathematical statistics and biostatistics departments at the University of North Carolina. Upon her retirement from North Carolina State University in 1960, Cox became the first head of the statistical research division at the newly founded RTI. She was a founding member of the International Biometric Society (IBS) and, in 1949, became the first woman elected into the International Statistical Institute. She served as president of both the American Statistical Association (1956) and IBS (1968–1969). In 1975, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Roger Herriot Award

Nominations are sought for the 2017 Roger Herriot Award for Innovation in Federal Statistics. The award is intended to reflect the characteristics that marked Roger Herriot’s career, including dedication to the issues of measurement, improvements in the efficiency of data collection programs, and improvements and use of statistical data for policy analysis.

The award is not limited to senior members of an organization, nor is it to be considered as a culmination of a long period of service. Individuals or teams at all levels within federal statistical agencies, other government organizations, nonprofit organizations, the private sector, and the academic community may be nominated on the basis of their contributions. As innovation often requires or results from teamwork, team nominations are encouraged.

The award consists of a $1,000 honorarium and a framed citation, which will be presented at a ceremony during the Joint Statistical Meetings in August 2017. The Washington Statistical Society may also host a seminar given by the winner on a subject of his or her choosing.

The recipient of the 2017 award will be chosen by a committee comprising representatives of the ASA Social Statistics and Government Statistics sections and the Washington Statistical Society. Herriot was associated with, and strongly supportive of, these organizations during his career.

Nominations should contain the following:

• A cover letter from the nominator that includes references to specific examples of the nominee’s contributions to innovation in federal statistics. These contributions can be to methodology, procedure, organization, administration, or other areas of federal statistics and need not have been made by or while a federal employee.
• Up to six more letters of support that show the innovativeness of each contribution.
• A current vita for the nominee with contact information. For team nominations, the vitae of all team members should be included.

The committee may consider nominations made for prior years, but it encourages resubmission of those nominations with updated information. Completed packages must be received by April 1. Electronic submissions sent to David Banks, chair of the 2017 Roger Herriot Award Committee, as Word or PDF files are strongly encouraged.

Roger Herriot was the associate commissioner of statistical standards and methodology at the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) when he died in 1994. Previously, he held several positions at the U.S. Census Bureau.

For more information, contact Banks by email or phone at (919) 684-3743.