Lawrence D. Brown
Lawrence D. Brown died February 21, 2018, at the age of 77.
Larry was born December 16, 1940, in Los Angeles, California. His parents moved to Alexandria, Virginia, during World War II, then returned to California. His father, Louis Brown, was a successful tax lawyer and later a professor of law at the University of Southern California, where he worked tirelessly on behalf of client services and conflict prevention, for which he coined the phrase preventive law.
Larry’s mother, Hermione Kopp Brown, studied law in Virginia and then Los Angeles and became one of the leading women lawyers in Los Angeles in the field of entertainment law, with emphasis on estate planning.
Larry inherited their dedication to service, their mental acuity and resourcefulness, and their selfless good spirits. He graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1957 and from the California Institute of Technology in 1961. He earned his PhD in mathematics from Cornell University three years later. Initially hired at the University of California, Berkeley, Larry then taught in the mathematics department at Cornell University from 1966–1972 and 1978–94 and in the statistics department at Rutgers University from 1972–1978; he moved to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1994 and taught his last course there as the Miers Busch Professor of Statistics in the fall of 2017.
One of the leading statisticians of his generation, Larry was the recipient of many honors, including devoted service as a member of the National Academy of Sciences, election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the presidency of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and an honorary doctorate from Purdue University.
To read more about Larry, visit the blog post by Francis Diebold.
Joan Georgette Staniswalis
Joan Georgette Staniswalis, professor emerita at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) and fellow of the American Statistical Association, died peacefully April 13, 2018. Her husband, David Finston, and sister, Stella Toibin, were at her side. Other family members and friends were nearby.
Staniswalis was born at Fort Lewis, Washington, to John G. Staniswalis (US Army) and Ida M. Staniswalis July 25, 1957. During her father’s frequent overseas postings, Joan, her mother, and her sister resided in Panama City, Panama. Joan was deeply rooted in both Panamanian and US culture. Her fluency in the customs and languages of two lands—combined with her exceptional intelligence, spiritual sensitivity, and generosity—made her a beloved mentor to legions of students, colleagues, and co-parishioners.
Staniswalis was educated at California State University, Fullerton (BS, mathematics) and University of California, San Diego (MS and PhD, mathematics). She had a distinguished and varied career as a statistician, making significant contributions to theory and biomedical applications, the latter a product of her experience on the faculty of The Medical College of Virginia. She came to UTEP in 1990, where she soon rose to the rank of full professor. Her experience at UTEP led to an interest in environmental applications such as the health effects of air pollution and the use of ecological inference to study ethnic disparities in health outcomes.
At UTEP, Staniswalis served as director of the NIH-funded Border Biomedical Research Center and director of the Statistical Consulting Laboratory. Her many accomplishments were recognized by the statistical community with her election to fellow of the American Statistical Association: “For important contributions to nonparametric regression and its application to biomedical research; for collaborative research accomplishments and administrative leadership in consulting; for mentoring of students and junior researchers.”
Even after her 2016 retirement, Joan continued her mentoring activities, graduating her final PhD student in December 2017 and embarking on an ambitious mathematics tutoring project to enhance opportunities for re-entry into society by inmates at the Doña Ana County Detention Center.
The practice of mercy, through works both corporal and spiritual, was instinctual to Joan. She had high standards, none higher than those to which she held herself, and her corrective advice, while always sincere, could be wilting. Remembered best, however, is her smile—which, in its warmth and nurturing power—eclipsed the tropical Panamanian sun.
A fund in Joan’s name has been established at UTEP to assist statistics graduate students with travel to conferences, an activity so important to Joan that she would rent a university van to drive students as far away as San Diego.
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