Joseph Hilbe, fellow and longtime member of the ASA, passed away March 12.
Hilbe’s work and life reflected his passions, including track and field, astronomy, and statistics.
Hilbe excelled as a track and field athlete. He was listed in the Track and Field News World List rankings in the 100 yards (1967) and 400 meters (1965), and he set the Hawaii state records in the javelin (1976). He played numerous roles as a leader in track and field and was hired by the Turner Broadcasting System to serve as athletics broadcast coordinator for the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle, Washington.
His love for astronomy led to him initiating the International Statistical Institute (ISI) Astrostatistics Interest Group. In 2009, the ISI council approved the creation of the group, which eventually led to the first professional association for astrostatisticians, the International Astrostatistics Association, with Hilbe elected as its founding president.
Hilbe was a fellow of the ASA and Royal Statistical Society, an elected member of the ISI, and a full member of the American Astronomical Society. From 1997 to 2009, he served as software reviews editor for The American Statistician, becoming one of the longest-serving editors for the publication.
In addition to editing TAS, Hilbe published numerous works, co-edited the Astrostatistics and Astroinformatics Portal, edited the Springer Series in Astrostatistics, and served as coordinating editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Predictive Analytics in Action. He chaired the ISI’s sports statistics committee, and was chair of the ASA Statistics and Sports Section in 2014.
Hilbe is survived by his wife, Cheryl Hilbe; his children; and his grandchildren.
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