The National Science Foundation will hold six conferences jointly with the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences in the spring and summer of 2010. Proposals for these conferences, which aim to stimulate interest and activity in mathematical research, will be accepted until April 23.

Thanks to the generosity of more than 500 ASA members who made contributions to the ASA’s annual fund this year, the association received more than $25,000.

The 2009 Annual Fund Drive was the first formal fund campaign for the ASA. For many years, the ASA has operated informal fund drives in which members were given the opportunity to make a contribution when renewing their memberships. This year, however, the association instituted a more systematic effort.

I am proud that our association has about 18,000 members from such diverse backgrounds, but I would love to see our membership be much higher. As I meet our members and many potential members at various conferences and chapter meetings, it is clear we can enhance mentoring of young statisticians. They are the future of our association and our profession.

In 2004, the National Institute of General Medical Sciences spearheaded a trans-NIH effort to increase the number of trained biostatisticians through its biostatistics predoctoral research training program. Applications for this program are now being accepted.

The February 2010 special issue of Technometrics features several articles detailing some of the fascinating applications in which statistical data analysis is used to detect unusual circumstances, or anomalies.