A special feature of the Joint Statistical Meetings is the ASA awards presentation. This year, the award winners were highlighted throughout the program and before the President’s Address. Also, Wendy Martinez interviewed the 2020 Founders Award winners, John Bailer and Ronald Fecso. An online Awards Book is also available.
Founders
John Bailer
Miami University
For leadership in statistics at the international level; for leadership of the Risk Analysis and Statistics and the Environment sections and of the Cincinnati Chapter; for service on and leadership of the Accreditation Committee; for service on the ASA Board of Directors, including as chair of the writing group that created the “Preparing Master’s Statistics Students for Success”; and for creating, producing, and performing in the Stats and Stories podcast, bringing “the statistics behind the stories and the stories behind the statistics” to public radio and a broad podcast audience.
Ronald S. Fecso
US Government Accountability Office (retired) and ASQ Solutions LLC
For service to and leadership of the Washington Statistical Society as its president and its Council of Chapters representative; for contributions to the ASA made through service on the Deming Lectureship Committee and the SPAIG Committee; for leadership of the Council of Chapters Governing Board over two terms; for many years of outstanding service on the Membership Retention and Recruitment Committee, including three years as chair; and for service on the ASA Board of Directors as a representative of the Council of Sections.
Fellows
Each year, ASA Fellows are nominated by the membership and selected by the ASA Committee on Fellows. The following ASA Fellows were inducted this year:
Edoardo M. Airoldi, Temple University
Garnet L. Anderson, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Rebecca Roberts Andridge, The Ohio State University
Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, University of Edinburgh and RStudio
Kwun Chuen Gary Chan, University of Washington
Chung-Chou H. Chang, University of Pittsburgh
Fang Chen, SAS Institute Inc.
Yong Chen, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
William Scott Clark, Eli Lilly and Company
Manisha Desai, Stanford University
Felicity Boyd Enders, Mayo Clinic
Robert Brandon Gramacy, Virginia Tech
Erica Lynn Groshen, Cornell-ILR School
Matthew James Gurka, University of Florida
Jaroslaw Harezlak, Indiana University School of Public Health
Guido W. Imbens, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Anastasia Ivanova, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Yuan Ji, The University of Chicago
Laura Lee Johnson, US Food and Drug Administration
Pandurang M. Kulkarni, Eli Lilly and Company
Hollylynne Stohl Lee, North Carolina State University
Jeffrey T. Leek, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Sergei Leonov, CSL Behring
Jialiang Li, National University of Singapore
Liang Li, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Qizhai Li, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jason Jinzhong Liao, Merck & Co. Inc.
Ching-Ti Liu, Boston University School of Public Health
Lisa M. Lix, University of Manitoba
Sheng Luo, Duke University
Jinchi Lv, University of Southern California
Louis T. Mariano, RAND Corporation
Rochelle Wilkie Martinez, Office of Management and Budget
Kary Myers, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Jennifer Clark Nelson, Kaiser Permanente Health Research Institute
Robert A. Oster, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Mark C. Otto, US Fish and Wildlife Service
Yongming Qu, Eli Lilly and Company
Sarah J. Ratcliffe, University of Virginia
Sherri Rose, Harvard Medical School
Michael Rosenblum, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Kenneth J. Ryan, West Virginia University
Brisa N. Sánchez, Drexel University
Alexandra M. Schmidt, McGill University
Matthias Schonlau, University of Waterloo
Damla Senturk, University of California, Los Angeles
Xiaofeng Shao, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Pamela A. Shaw, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine
Yiyuan She, Florida State University
Rajeshwari Sundaram, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
LehanaThabane, St Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton
Haonan Wang, Colorado State University
Daniela M. Witten, University of Washington
Victor J. Yohai, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Kai Yu, National Cancer Institute
Zhengyuan Zhu, Iowa State University
Richard Conrad Zink, TARGET PharmaSolutions Inc.
Many more people were honored for their contributions to various causes that advance the field of statistics. Following are some of the awards and recipients:
Appreciation for Retiring Editors
- Daniel R. Jeske
University of California, Riverside
Editor, The American Statistician
2018–2020 - Jia Li
The Pennsylvania State University
Editor-in-Chief, Statistical Analysis and Data Mining
2018–2020 - Regina Liu
Rutgers University
Co-Editor, Theory and Methods, Journal of the American Statistical Association
2018–2020 - Steve Rigdon
St. Louis University
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports
2018–2020 - Hongyu Zhao
Yale University
Co-Editor, Theory and Methods, Journal of the American Statistical Association
2018–2020
Gertrude Cox Scholarship in Statistics
Born in 1900, Gertrude Cox is fondly known as the “First Lady of Statistics” for her pioneering roles in the predominantly male-dominated discipline of statistics. Among her many accolades and accomplishments, she became the first woman—and the first person—to earn a master’s degree in statistics from Iowa State University, where she was appointed assistant professor of statistics in 1939. In 1940, she became professor of statistics at North Carolina State University.
Jointly sponsored by the ASA Committee on Women in Statistics and the Caucus for Women in Statistics, the Cox scholarship has been presented annually since 1989 to encourage women to enter statistically oriented professions. This year’s Gertrude Cox Scholarship went to Mikaela Meyer and Holly Hartman.
To Mikaela R. Meyer, PhD student in statistics and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, for her outstanding academic success, her dedication and commitment to interdisciplinary statistics-based policy research for the public good, and for her varied and extensive community engagement activities, including organizing voter registration drives, undergraduate mentoring and pedagogy research, and activism in fostering diversity in the STEM fields through Carnegie Mellon’s Women in Statistics Group and through Women in Data Science, a collection of conferences highlighting women across a variety of disciplines.
To Holly Hartman, PhD student in biostatistics at the University of Michigan, for her outstanding research in clinical trials and oncology statistics, as well as her deep commitment and activism in fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in her department, in the field of statistics, and in society in general.
Mentoring Award
The ASA Mentoring Award honors those recognized by their colleagues for their sustained efforts to champion the work and develop the careers of statisticians.
The 2020 Mentoring Award honoree is Barry Graubard from the National Cancer Institute for his decades of sustained, dedicated, and impactful mentoring to statisticians at all levels, across multiple disciplines, and from diverse backgrounds and for remaining an engaged and continuing adviser to his mentees throughout their chosen careers in academe, government, and industry.
Monroe G. Sirken Award
Monroe G. Sirken created an endowment to recognize a distinguished researcher for contributions to interdisciplinary survey research that improve the theory and methods of collecting, verifying, processing, presenting, or analyzing survey data.
Roger Tourangeau of Westat is this year’s Sirken Award winner for advancing the theory and application of the cognitive aspects of survey methodology and the psychology of survey response; for applying rigorous experimental designs to study mode effects, methods for collecting data on sensitive topics, and other important topics; for pioneering research on the visual aspects of survey design for web and mobile surveys; and for furthering our understanding of the relationship between response rates and nonresponse bias.
Award of Outstanding Statistical Application
This award celebrates the authors of a paper that is an outstanding application of statistics in the physical, biological, or medical sciences. The two groups of honorees for Outstanding Statistical Application Award are:
- Youjin Lee
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health - Mei-Cheng Wang
Johns Hopkins School of Public Health - Katharine Laughon Grantz
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development - Rajeshwari Sundaram
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
For their paper, “Joint Modeling of Competing Risks Data and Current Status Data: An Application to Spontaneous Labour Study.”
- Yiming Hu
Yale School of Public Health - Mo Li
Yale School of Public Health - Qiongshi Lu
University of Wisconsin-Madison - Hongyu Zhao
Yale School of Public Health - Haoyi Weng
The Chinese University of Hong Kong - Jiawei Wang
Yale University - Seyedeh M. Zekavat
Yale School of Medicine - Zhaolong Yu
Yale University - Boyang Li
Yale School of Public Health - Jianlei Gu
Shanghai Jiaotong University - Sydney Muchnik
Yale School of Medicine - Yu Shi
Yale School of Public Health - Brian W. Kunkle
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine - B. Shubhabrata Mukherjee
University of Washington - Pradeep Natarajan
Massachusetts General Hospital - Adam Naj
University of Pennsylvania - Amanda Kuzma
University of Pennsylvania - Yi Zhao
University of Pennsylvania - Paul K. Crane
University of Washington - Hui Lu
Shanghai Jiaotong University
For their paper, “A Statistical Framework for Cross-Tissue Transcriptome-Wide Association Analysis.”
Gottfried E. Noether Awards
The Noether awards were established to recognize distinguished researchers and teachers and to support the field of nonparametric statistics. The 2020 Noether Senior Scholar Awardee is Art Owen, Stanford University, for outstanding contributions to the theory, methods, applications, and teaching of nonparametric statistics.
The 2020 Noether Young Scholar Award winner is Tracey Ke, Harvard University, for outstanding early-career contributions to nonparametric statistics.
Jackie Dietz Best Paper Award
Established in 2011, this award is given to the best paper published in the Journal of Statistics Education from the previous year. The 2019 Jackie Dietz Best Journal of Statistics Education Paper Award honorees are Heather S. Smith, California Polytechnic State University, and Eric Vance, LISA, University of Colorado-Boulder, for their paper, “The ASCCR Frame for Learning Essential Collaboration Skills.”
Karl E. Peace Award
The Karl E. Peace Award for Outstanding Statistical Contributions for the Betterment of Society, established in 2012, recognizes statisticians who have made substantial contributions to the statistical profession and society in general. This year’s honoree is Francesca Dominici, Harvard University, for her high-quality, innovative, and policy-relevant science; for her commitment to transparency and reproducibility in science; and for her work in developing statistical methods for evaluating health effects of exposure to air pollution.
Waller Awards
These honors—the Waller Distinguished Teaching Career and Waller Education awards—were established with a contribution from retired ASA Executive Director Ray Waller and his wife, Carolyn. The former recognizes an individual for sustained excellence in teaching and statistics education, and the latter honors an individual for innovation in the instruction of elementary statistics.
Waller Distinguished Teaching Career Award
Beth L. Chance, California Polytechnic State University
In recognition of tireless and inspiring dedication to her students’ learning, creative and effective teaching of undergraduate statistics, high-impact contributions to curriculum and software development, and highly regarded statistics education research.
Waller Education Award
William Cipolli, Colgate University
In recognition of his innovative approaches to teaching and statistical collaboration, bringing the importance of statistics in daily life to his students and others, and for his tireless work to reform statistics education at his own institution and beyond.
W.J. Dixon Award for Excellence in Statistical Consulting
Established through a gift from the family of Wilfrid J. Dixon, this award recognizes outstanding contributions to the practice of statistical consulting. This year’s award winner is Terry Therneau, Mayo Clinic, for developing and continuously updating the most widely used and respected survival analysis software in the world; for his long-term collaborations in hematology, hepatology, and dementia research and his outstanding contributions to advancing the science and art of statistical consulting; and for generously disseminating his expertise in both statistical analyses and statistical consulting through the use of illustrative examples.
Samuel S. Wilks Memorial Award
The Wilks award honors the memory and distinguished career of Samuel S. Wilks and is bestowed upon a distinguished individual who has made statistical contributions to the advancement of scientific or technical knowledge, ingenious application of existing knowledge, or successful activity in the fostering of cooperative scientific efforts that have been directly involved in matters of national defense or public interest. Malay Ghosh of the University of Florida was honored with the Wilks award for his outstanding contribution to small area estimation, his contribution to the theory and practice of Bayesian statistics, and for his superb teaching and mentoring of PhD students.
Be sure to check the section and chapter announcements for additional award honorees.
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