Walter Richard Young

Submitted by Lolita Young

Walter Richard Young passed away at the age of 83 on February 11, 2022, following a brief but intense battle with brain cancer.

Walter was born in Manhattan in 1938. He was awarded two master’s of science degrees from New York University in 1960 and 1962 in chemical engineering and operations research. 

After brief stints as a process engineer and market analyst, Walter retired from Wyeth in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, in 2005 with 41 years of service as a principal clinical programmer. He was an expert in a number of computer programming languages (including SAS) and graphics and authored dozens of publications in his field. 

Walter joined the Metropolitan Section of the American Society for Quality Control in 1962. He served various roles in the ASQ for nearly 60 years and considered his 52-year tenure as chair of the annual Deming Conference on Applied Statistics to be one of his greatest achievements. He wrote about his years serving as chair in “Some Nonstatistical Reminiscences of My 45 Years of Chairing the Deming Conference.”

In his later years, Walter valued his family above all else. He was fond of films, books, traveling, and all manner of food. He was an avid player of Pokémon Go since its initial release in 2016 and enjoyed playing Animal Crossing online with his family during the recent pandemic.

When casually asked how he was, Walter’s typical response was simply, “I’m still ALIVE.” He will forever remain that way in the hearts of those he left behind. 

Walter is survived by his wife, Lolita; his daughter, Katharine; his two sons, Peter and Walter (Albert); and their wives, Melissa and Maria.

Edward Lee Frome

A longtime ASA member, Edward Lee Frome passed away on December 31, 2021. He confronted his progressive medical challenges from primary orthostatic tremor with optimism, courage, and tenacity.

Ed was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 19, 1942. In his youth, he enjoyed basketball, adventures at Aunt Kate’s farm, and summer days with relatives on the Eastern Shore. He developed his work ethic while assisting in his grandfather’s greenhouses, growing potted chrysanthemums and geraniums and then selling them on the streets of downtown Baltimore.

Ed attended Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in the ninth grade. In 1957, his father was relocated to Lockheed Martin in Orlando and the family moved to Florida, where Ed graduated from Winter Park High School. He was a member of the Order of DeMolay, an international fraternal organization for young men ages 12–21.

Ed attended the University of Florida in Gainesville, where he was a member and treasurer of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He earned a bachelor’s of science degree in physics with a minor in psychology and went on to earn his master’s degree in statistics at UF in 1966.

After college, Ed moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to join the Medical and Health Sciences Division at Oak Ridge Associated Universities, where he provided statistical analysis for cytogenetic research and radiation dosimetry. His research was supported by NASA, in search of understanding the effects of whole-body radiation, which led to Ed’s first research publication in Aerospace Medicine in April of 1969.

In 1968, funded by a research fellowship from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, Ed moved to Atlanta to attend Emory University and pursue a PhD in biostatistics. There, after a friendly tennis match in the spring of 1970, he found his perfectly matched soulmate, Ann, napping in the grass under a tree beside a flowing stream. He wrote of Ann in his final poem: “A warm heart and a patient smile, Michelangelo’s beautiful women, that’s how I think of you. Whenever I see a beautiful garden, I know there must be a gardener sleeping under a tree, somewhere. I see myself in you.” They were married in 1971.

With the mentorship of his adviser, Michael H. Kutner, Ed earned his PhD and then served as a postdoctoral research fellow in anesthesiology in the school of medicine at Emory University, where he performed the real-time statistical analysis of heart and respiratory sounds during open-heart surgery. He developed and applied new statistical methods based on numeric spectrum analysis to monitor respiratory function.

In 1973, Ed and Ann moved to Austin, Texas, where he was an assistant professor of statistics-operations research and an associate member of the graduate faculty at The University of Texas. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses in sampling, regression analysis, and time series. He was also a research associate with the Center for Cybernetic Studies and the Drug Dynamic Institute. Ed provided the application of statistical methods to bioavailability studies in the statistical analysis of clinical drug trials. In 1977, Ed returned to Oak Ridge to continue his preferred biomedical research in cytogenetics and radiation dosimetry.

Ed joined the Mathematics and Computer Science Division at Oak Ridge as a member of the senior research staff in 1981 and worked there until his retirement in 2007. His responsibilities were research in biostatistics and long-term collaborative research with scientists in several fields. In 1987, he became a principal investigator for the Oak Ridge statistics group’s research efforts in biostatistics and epidemiology. He was also a co-investigator on an NIH-funded grant to study the effects of neutron radiation on chromosome aberrations. In addition, Ed served as an adjunct professor at the University of Tennessee and school of public health at The University of North Carolina. He was a consulting scientist for the Oak Ridge Institute of Science and Education. In the late 1990s through the turn of the century, Ed served as a member of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee, and Oak Ridge Environmental Quality Advisory Board.

Ed led research design in establishing epidemiological studies of nuclear workers to determine if low levels of radiation exposure resulted in adverse outcomes. Research in this area had been underway for many years but received improved structure and rigor with Ed’s input. Data was collected and analyzed from film badges and death certificates of 118,000 former Oak Ridge nuclear workers. Coincidentally, Ed and Ann bought their home in 1977 from health physicist Ernest O. Wollan, inventor and developer of the film badge.

Ed was instrumental in studies to determine if survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki experienced adverse radiation effects. His statistical work at Oak Ridge included several studies of hazardous exposure in the workplace. He was instrumental in spearheading the development of a software system to analyze beryllium exposure, which incorporated his original statistical approach and was adopted by beryllium labs across the country.

Ed is best known for his central role in the development of Poisson regression methods. The statistical methods he developed and refined provide a major tool for statisticians around the world in the analysis of biomedical data and are widely used by epidemiologists and clinical and experimental scientists.

He also developed new algorithms for least absolute value regression based on linear programming methods, widely used in pharmacokinetics. He was the first to show how Poisson regression methods could be used to analyze cytogenetic dose-response data. He also developed an efficient algorithm used to verify Poisson variation in situations where the data may be sparse.

During Ed’s career, he authored 68 statistical research papers, resulting in 2,080 citations by other researchers and 5,386 reads. He clearly was the most highly cited author in the area of Poisson regression modeling, with his 1983 Biometrics manuscript, “The Analysis of Rates Using Poisson Regression Models,” cited 547 times. He was often asked to give papers at national scientific meetings and write review articles in his areas of expertise. In addition, he wrote dozens of technical reports and proceedings.

Ed was elected a fellow of the ASA in 1996 in recognition of his many years of diligent work and outstanding contributions to the statistical profession. He exhibited exceptional competence both methodologically and in specialized areas of application and demonstrated a sustained record of technical leadership. He was also an exceptional experimentalist and innovative theoretician with a national reputation. Among his major achievements were the development and refinement of Poisson regression methods and advances in understanding the health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation.

Ed served as an associate editor for the Journal of the American Statistical Association from 1983–1993. In 2005, the ASA presented him with the Exemplary Service Award in acknowledgement of his service as the ASA webmaster from 1998–2005. He was the chair of the 1985 ASA Conference on Radiation and Health. Upon retirement in 2007, the ASA awarded Ed a lifetime membership for the wealth of knowledge and prestige he brought to the study of statistics and the association. Ed was also a member of the International Biometric Society and Radiation Research Society. He was an editorial collaborator for statistics for the Journal of Radiation Research.

In 2014, Ed was an inaugural recipient of the Michael H. Kutner Distinguished Alumni Award from Emory University. This honor was in recognition of his distinguished service to the statistics discipline and his lifetime career achievements.

Ed’s statistical career was an unwavering, quiet quest for truth and knowledge through statistical research and innovation, with meticulous attention given to thoughtful study design, accurate data collection, and robust statistical methods. During his career, Ed advised many graduate students and was considered to be a thoughtful and positive mentor who encouraged and facilitated students to realize their full potential.

In 1982, Ed developed a home-based summer computer camp for children, thus providing a 20-year enrichment program for their two children, numerous young friends and relatives, and hundreds of Oak Ridge youth.

Ed began attending First Presbyterian Church in 1966 and enjoyed assisting Ann with teaching Sunday School in the preschool and kindergarten classes. He connected with children through a unique sense of humor, calm manner, and patience. Children brought out the ELF (his initials) in Ed, qualities he embraced and children enjoyed.

As a member of the Oak Ridge Tennis Club, Ed played league and family tennis. He supported Ann in coaching middle school and United States Tennis Association junior team tennis for 30 years. In his earlier years, he enjoyed hiking, biking, jogging, and taking walks with Ann. He logged more than 3,600 visits at the Cardiac Rehab program in Oak Ridge. Ed delighted in play with his young grandchildren, especially indoor ball during his home-bound years.

Ed is survived by his devoted wife of 50 years, Ann Frome; cherished children, Daniel Frome (Stephanie) and Julie Park (Deacon); adored grandchildren, Jackson Frome, Ella Frome, and Carlee Anne Park; two beloved sisters, Donna Deverell (Chris) and Kathy Dennis (Jim); and numerous cousins, nieces, and nephews who have enriched his life. He is also survived by the family indoor cats who provided endless entertainment and enjoyment.

M. K. Srirama

M. K. Srirama, an ASA member for nearly five decades, passed away peacefully on December 20, 2021.

Srirama was a gold medalist in MS mathematics in India. He earned his MPH and PhD in biostatistics from the University of California, Berkeley, and then went on to earn his MBA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

He worked in the pharmaceutical industry, namely at Parke-Davis, Pfizer, and as vice president at Kendle International. After retirement, Srirama missed work and was not satisfied sitting at home and resting on his laurels, so he went back to work as the senior director of biostatistics at Quintiles.

His other passions included Karnatic music—classical music from south India—and playing the violin. He was also supportive of his wife, Malini, in her scholastic and artistic pursuits.

He is survived by his wife; his daughter, Madhu; his son, Rohith; and multiple extended family members.