Nicholas Horton Honored with Mosteller Statistician of the Year Award

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The Boston Chapter of the American Statistical Association recently honored Nicholas Horton, Beitzel Professor in Technology and Society (Statistics and Data Science) at Amherst College, with the Mosteller Statistician of the Year Award. This award is given to a distinguished statistician who has made exceptional contributions to the statistics field and demonstrated outstanding service to the statistical community, including the Boston Chapter.

Originally established in 1990 as the Statistician of the Year Award, it was renamed the Mosteller Statistician of the Year Award in 1997 in honor of its first recipient, Frederick Mosteller, who served as the founding chair of Harvard’s statistics department from 1957–1971, president of the ASA and Institute for Mathematical Statistics, and president of the Boston Chapter from 1959–1960. He was also the only statistician to serve as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Horton was recognized for his numerous innovative contributions to statistics and data science education and his significant participation in regional statistics activities for more than 25 years. His contributions to statistics and data science education were highlighted and his extensive involvement in professional organizations, including the ASA, were acknowledged.

The event, held in collaboration with Harvard’s statistics department, saw close to 50 attendees. Included were introductions of the chapter by current chapter president Wenting Cheng and stories about Mosteller shared by Joseph Blitzstein, a professor at Harvard University and former chapter president. Tom Lane, also a former chapter president, discussed Horton’s contributions, while Amy Wagaman provided a tribute video with messages of appreciation from his students that described his impact at Amherst.

Horton’s presentation, titled “From the Federalist Papers to ChatGPT,” explored the relevance of text analytics in statistics education and data science and how Mosteller had been a pioneer in this field.