Michigan Biostatistics Hosts Symposium in Honor of Jack Kalbfleisch

Douglas Schaubel and Bhramar Mukherjee

A symposium in honor of Jack Kalbfleisch, “Methodologic Advances in the Analysis of Outcomes Data,” was held September 28–29 at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Approximately 160 celebrated Kalbfleisch’s contributions to statistics and service to the profession.

Several areas to which Kalbfleisch made substantial contributions were represented, including event history analysis, mixed models, likelihood inference, nonparametric statistics, biased sampling, and organ transplantation. The symposium began with a keynote presentation by Jerry Lawless of the University of Waterloo, titled, “Aspects of Multi-State Modeling and Analysis.” The keynote was followed by a welcome reception held concurrently with a poster session that displayed recent work from current graduate students to professors from institutions across North America.

The second day featured welcoming remarks by Trivellore Raghunathan and Yi Li, followed by presentations from Ross Prentice, Richard Cook, Tony Sun, Douglas Schaubel, Peter Song, Nancy Reid, Ed Susko, John Neuhaus, Bin Nan, Chris Wild, and Mary Thompson.

The symposium concluded with a banquet and after-dinner program, the highlights of which included singing by Rod Little, “Kalbfleisching” by Vijay Nair, and a skit by the amateur artists of the Michigan Players. The plot of the skit revealed the installment of Kalbfleisch as the department chair by a hockey stick–swinging genie (thus ousting the overbearing maharajah), a new tenure and promotion policy implemented by Kalbfleisch through the game of Tenure Survivor (presided over by Ross The Apprentice), and the selection of Jerry Lawless as the new department chair via a multiple imputation machine. The night concluded with a slide show reflecting on Kalbfleisch’s life and personal tributes from family and friends.

Many former colleagues from the University of Waterloo attended the conference. Kalbfleisch’s wife, Sharon; son, Michael; daughters, Heidi and Kirby; and brother, Jim all attended the banquet.