The Bob Riffenburgh award, honoring statistician Robert H. Riffenburgh, will recognize the transfer or extension of statistical methods developed for or used in one field of application into another where it has never or seldom been used. Its goal is to recognize that these statistical transfers broaden the range of statistical methods applied to various fields of science and encourage statistics users to seek innovative methods not commonly used in their field. It focuses largely, but not exclusively, on transfers into the field of medicine.
Riffenburgh says some of his most satisfying contributions to statistics were introducing previously unused statistical methods to applied fields. Notable examples include the Markov-chain system analysis and system modeling of fish schooling to marine biology, multiple discriminant analysis to sociology, AI-controlled robotic data devices to space exploration, and analysis of variance and change point detection in time series to physical oceanography.
A number of classified method transfers for the Navy followed in the next years. Then, there were several transfers from one medical field to another, starting with statistical logic and detecting survival patterns in disease progression, continuing up to bias correction in medical markers.
Through this award, Riffenburgh says he hopes to “motivate the continuation of cross-disciplinary work after I leave the planet.”
The Riffenburgh award will be given every two years, and the recipient will receive a $4,000 cash prize. The first award will be presented at JSM 2023.
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