Barbara A. Bailar, 1987

Barbara A. Bailar

Kirk Wolter

Barbara Bailar passed away June 13, 2023, at her home in Houston, Texas, where she had moved during the pandemic to be near family.

Barbara grew up in upstate New York and earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from the State University of New York at Albany. She was trained in statistics at Virginia Tech and American University, earning a master’s degree and PhD, respectively.

She spent most of her career at the US Census Bureau, where she worked from 1958 to 1987. She became associate director for statistical standards and methodology and was instrumental in establishing a computer-assisted telephone interviewing capability (a relatively new mode of data collection at the time) and survey methodology as a distinct discipline there.

Barbara sought and organized the financial resources and institutional backing necessary to develop a cognitive laboratory organizational unit within the bureau.

She defended the 1980 Decennial Census in federal court and led efforts to develop and test new methods of census taking that would reduce differential undercount in future censuses.

Barbara founded the bureau’s annual research conference in the mid-1980s, a forerunner of today’s FCSM Research and Policy Conference.

She was an executive with NORC at the University of Chicago from 1995 to 2001.

Barbara conducted research on nonsampling errors in social surveys and censuses. She designed and analyzed special studies to measure the correlated component of response variance brought by interviewer effects. Her work on rotation group bias and an error profile for the Current Population Survey is well known.

Barbara was a prominent statistician. She was the 82nd president of the American Statistical Association in 1987, president of the International Association of Survey Statisticians from 1989 to 1991, and vice president of the International Statistical Institute from 1993 to 1995. She served as executive director of the ASA for seven years in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was active in the Washington Statistical Society throughout her career. She was also a fellow of the ASA and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.

Barbara was married to John C. Bailar III (deceased), a prominent biomedical statistician who was founding chair of The University of Chicago Department of Public Health Sciences. She is survived by two daughters, Pamela Monaco (Ocean County College) and Melissa Bailar (Rice University), and one grandchild.

I had the distinct honor and great pleasure of working with Barbara for 20 years.

Carol Joyce Blumberg

On December 16, 2023, Carol Joyce Blumberg of Silver Spring, Maryland, passed away at the age of 72 after a long illness.

Carol was known nationally and internationally for her many contributions to promoting statistics education. She was active in the American Statistical Association, Washington Statistical Society, American Educational Research Association, and International Association for Statistical Education. She was chosen to become a fellow of the ASA in 2010 “for notable contributions to statistics education at the national and international level; for outstanding teaching, advising and mentoring; for extensive service to the profession; and for contributions to the fields of educational statistics and energy statistics.” She was also an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.

Carol was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in the suburb of Oak Park. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics at the University of Michigan and went on to Michigan State University, where she earned a master’s degree in statistics and probability and a doctorate in educational psychology with a major in statistics and research design.

She began her professional career in 1981 at the University of Delaware as a faculty member in the department of educational studies and department of mathematical sciences. In 1987, she accepted a faculty position in the department of mathematical sciences at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. While at the University of Delaware and Winona State, she was also a consultant on educational and psychological research projects, resulting in several published papers. Her areas of research included the errors in variables problem in modeling, application of statistical quality control methodology to educational settings, and methods of teaching data analysis concepts and skills.

In 1993 and 1994, Carol spent a sabbatical year as visiting lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University in England. In 2001 and 2002, her sabbatical leave was split between the ISI in Voorburg, the Netherlands, and Winona State University while working on the development of the International Statistical Literacy Project.

Upon retiring from Winona State in 2006, Carol moved to Washington, DC, where she worked for the US Department of Energy in the Energy Information Administration as a mathematical statistician until her retirement in 2014. At the EIA, she made several important methodological contributions to the work of the petroleum division in the Office of Oil and Gas. These included the computation of yearly change (growth rates) in volume of the supply of petroleum products, computation of confidence intervals for nonstandard estimates, and comparison of EIA sampling frames and petroleum price and volume data with external sources. She organized an invited session on energy statistics for the ISI Biennial Meetings, the first such session in many years, shortly after joining the EIA.

Carol was known for her extraordinary commitment to teaching and mentoring. During her career, she consulted with more than 50 students from two school districts on all aspects of their science fair projects and written papers. At the ASA, she was deeply involved in the quantitative literacy effort, including the poster contest. She organized the ASA/WSS display at the USA Science and Engineering Festival for many years. She also organized the WSS Statistics Education Committee and presented well-attended seminars for K–12 statistics teachers and students. At WSS, she revived and became the program chair for data collection methods and organized many successful seminars.

Later, Carol was involved with statistics education generally (including for the ASA Section on Statistics and Data Science Education and IASE) over many years. In retirement, she continued to volunteer in many capacities at the ASA and WSS. She was a recipient of the WSS President’s Award, and her extensive contributions to the WSS, statistics education, and the ASA were much appreciated.

Carol loved eating at restaurants with friends and working sudoku puzzles, at which she was extremely proficient. She also volunteered with Hadassah. She was a loyal friend to many and will be remembered as a brilliant statistician and teacher who genuinely cared for her students and helped others wherever she could. She is survived by her brother, David Blumberg of Laredo, Texas. She will be greatly missed.

Johannes Ledolter

Bovas Abraham, University of Waterloo, and Kung-Sik Chan, University of Iowa

It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our dear friend Johannes Ledolter, professor of statistics and business at the University of Iowa and emeritus professor at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Johannes passed away peacefully at his home in Iowa City on November 5, 2023, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.

Born in Austria and graduating from the University of Vienna, Johannes came to the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a Fulbright scholarship in 1971. That was the beginning of an exciting new life for him.

In 1973, he met Lea Vander Velde, a law student in Madison who later became his wife and life partner. He also met George E.P. Box, one of the greatest statisticians of all time, who became his PhD thesis adviser, mentor, and friend. He earned a PhD in 1975. During that time, he also earned a master’s degree in social and economic statistics at the University of Vienna.

Friends from his years in Madison recall his curiosity for learning about his new environment and enjoying the sights and sounds of Madison.

After his graduation in 1975, Johannes spent two years at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg and the Austrian Institute of Economic Research in Vienna. Then, he returned to Madison, where Lea was finishing her law degree, and joined the University of Wisconsin as a research associate working with professors George Box and George Tiao.

Johannes joined the University of Iowa in 1978 with a joint appointment in the department of statistics (later renamed the department of statistics and actuarial science) and department of business administration (currently renamed as the business analytics department) at the Tippie College of Business. In 2000, he transitioned to the Tippie College of Business as a chaired professor while retaining his lifelong affiliation with the department of statistics and actuarial science. At the time of his passing, he held the Robert Thomas Holmes Professorship in Business Analytics. Johannes also had a joint appointment as professor of statistics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business from 1997 to 2015. Additionally, he had visiting appointments at prestigious universities such as Princeton, Yale, Stanford, and The University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Johannes enjoyed teaching at all levels. His teaching was recognized with the Tippie Dean’s Teaching Award in 2005 and Tippie College Faculty Career Achievement Award in 2023. He gave invited addresses and lectures at various national and international conferences and had several awards from the profession. He was a fellow of the American Statistical Association, a fellow of the American Society for Quality, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute. He was also honored with the William G. Hunter Award in 2022.

Johannes adopted George Box’s philosophy of seeing statistics as a vehicle to solve real-world problems. Instead of bringing a particular set of methods or genre, he took the cue from the real-world problem. As an applied statistician, he was a highly productive researcher and had made seminal contributions to diverse areas such as time series, business analytics, forecasting, industrial statistics, quality, and visual sciences through his books, papers, and technology transfer activities. As a firm believer in experimentation not only in manufacturing and marketing but also in many other endeavors, he experimented with diverse topics and coauthors. He wrote more than 10 books and was the author of more than 150 papers. His co-authored book with Bovas Abraham, Statistical Methods for Forecasting, has been cited more than 1,600 times, according to Google Scholar. His books span areas including forecasting, engineering statistics, business analytics, and text mining, the latter of which was written with his wife, a law professor at the University of Iowa.

Johannes was an excellent statistical leader and educator who served the statistics profession in many capacities. He was passionate about the accurate application of statistics and precise communication of results. He was a careful listener, clear thinker, and problem-solver who was genuine in his approach to getting work done ethically. He has given excellent industrial consultation to organizations such as the Ford Motor Company, Procter & Gamble, American Express, Lenzing Fibers, and Telekom Austria. He also taught workshops for business and quality professionals on topics spanning statistical modeling, forecasting, quality improvement, and data mining.

Johannes was a skilled skier and bicyclist, wood worker, and preparer of paella for the neighborhood block party but, most of all, he was a devoted friend. In addition, he was a cherished mentor to many. He generously shared friendly advice with numerous junior colleagues, encouraging them to think outside the box while keeping the big picture in mind. He was gentle and genuine and possessed a warm personality, always reaching out to connect with his colleagues.