AAAS Elects 8 Statistics Section Fellows

In October, the American Association for the Advancement of Science council elected nearly 505 members as fellows, and a virtual induction ceremony took place on February 13. Election as a fellow honors members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications in service to society have distinguished them among their peers and colleagues.

The eight new fellows of AAAS Section U (Statistics) are the following:

• Catherine A. Calder, The University of Texas at Austin
• Jacqueline M. Hughes-Oliver, North Carolina State University
• Marek Kimmel, Rice University
• Ping Ma, University of Georgia
• Wendy L. Martinez, US Census Bureau
• Dionne L. Price, US Food and Drug Administration
• Peihua Qiu, University of Florida
• Hui Zou, University of Minnesota

Kanti Mardia

ASA member Kanti Mardia has been made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. A senior research professor at the University of Leeds, Mardia is a distinguished Indian statistician who is known for his pioneering work on multivariate analysis, directional data, and statistical measures of shape. His book, Multivariate Analysis, is a household title among statistics students.

Mardia is the founder of the Royal Statistical Society’s Mardia Prize, awarded for interdisciplinary research. Among his many honors, Mardia received the Guy Medal in Silver by the RSS and the Wilks Memorial Award by the American Statistical Association. He was also awarded the IISA Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019.

Melissa Chiu and Brian Harris-Kojetin

Melissa Chiu became the seventh director of the Committee on National Statistics on February 25, succeeding Brian Harris-Kojetin.

Chiu has served as deputy director of CNSTAT since 2021. She also served as the study director for the consensus panel that produced the report A Vision and Roadmap for Education Statistics.

Before joining the National Academies, Chiu spent 15 years leading data governance and analytics in the federal government, most recently as executive director (acting), director of analytics, and director of data governance in the Office of Data Governance and Analytics, Office of Enterprise Integration, Department of Veterans Affairs. She also represented the VA as the statistical official on the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy and the senior agency official for geospatial information (alternate) on the Federal Geographic Data Committee.

Prior to joining the VA, Chiu worked for the US Census Bureau, where she expanded and promoted the data linkage infrastructure to increase the use of integrated administrative data in high-quality research for evidence-based decision-making.

Brian Harris-Kojetin served as CNSTAT director since July 2017. He will continue with CNSTAT as a part-time senior scholar.

Harris-Kojetin is the co-editor of the seventh edition of Principles and Practices for a Federal Statistical Agency. He joined CNSTAT as deputy director in 2015 and served as the study director for the consensus panel that produced the reports Innovation in Federal Statistics: Combining Data Sources While Protecting Privacy and Federal Statistics, Multiple Data Sources, and Privacy Protection: Next Steps.

Previously, Harris-Kojetin served as a senior statistician in the Statistical and Science Policy Office at the Office of Management and Budget and a research psychologist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He is an elected fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Prabhakara Narasandra

ASA member Prabhakara Narasandra recently earned his doctorate in literature for his thesis “The Economic Activity of Children and Child Labor in India: Causes and Concerns.”

After earning his master’s in statistics from Bangalore University in Karnataka, Narasandra worked in the Population Research Center at the Institute for Social and Economic Change in Bangalore. Eventually, he came to the US to earn his PhD from Claramont Graduate School before transferring to the University of California, Irvine. He worked as a teaching assistant there in the mathematics department until he retired.

Prithwis Kumar De

Prithwis Kumar De recently authored Towards Net-Zero Targets: Usage of Data Science for Long-Term Sustainability Pathways, published by the Springer Nature Group.

The book discusses the use of technology, AI, machine learning, and data to achieve the net-zero carbon emission target. It includes case studies to explain the use of AI and machine learning in combating climate change.