Archive for industrial statistics

Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award 2025 [call]

Posted in Books, Kids, pictures, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 3, 2025 by xi'an

[Reposted:] The Blackwell-Rosenbluth Award by j-ISBA ia a recently established award for junior researchers in different areas of Bayesian statistics. The award aims at recognizing outstanding junior Bayesian researchers based on their overall contribution to the field and to the community. There will be six winners in total who will be invited to present their work in two special events of the Junior Bayes Beyond the Borders (JB³) webinar series and receive three years of free ISBA and j-ISBA membership.

ISBA proudly has a wide geographical diversity among its members. To encourage scientific exchange and strengthen research connections between geographies, three prizes will be awarded to researchers based in time zones UTC+0 to UTC+13 [e.g. Africa + Asia + Europe + Oceania] and three to those based in UTC-12 to UTC-1 [e.g. North America + South America].

We welcome nominations of junior researchers working in the broad spectrum of topics in Bayesian statistics, including but not limited to methods, theory, computation, machine learning, data science, biostatistics, econometrics, industrial statistics, environmental science, and software. The deadline is 15 July 2025.

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Charlie, the jogger, the killer, and the journalist

Posted in Books, Running with tags , , , , , , , , , , on October 3, 2020 by xi'an

The trial of the suspects of the Charlie Hebdo killings of 7 January 2015 (and of the subsequent days) has started several weeks ago, involving people accused of helping the main culprits, who died on 9 January. In the long flow of witnesses and victims, a case remains a mystery, the shooting of a random runner in Fontenay-aux-Roses, on the first evening with the same weapon used two days later by the Hyper Casher killer. The runner survived the shooting, despite all odds, but one sees no other motive in the attack than a ghastly real-scale testing of the weapon, as he has no connection with the journal, with the killers or with the accused… The trial also brings a stark reminder that the survivors of Charlie are still living under permanent police protection, having to give up part of their freedom to keep up publishing the journal. As sadly illustrated by the recent exfiltration of Marika Bret from her flat following specific death threats. To quote the late Cabu, dur d’être aimé par des cons…

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Judith Rousseau gets Bernoulli Society Ethel Newbold Prize

Posted in Books, Kids, Statistics, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 31, 2015 by xi'an

As announced at the 60th ISI World Meeting in Rio de Janeiro, my friend, co-author, and former PhD student Judith Rousseau got the first Ethel Newbold Prize! Congrats, Judith! And well-deserved! The prize is awarded by the Bernoulli Society on the following basis

The Ethel Newbold Prize is to be awarded biannually to an outstanding statistical scientist for a body of work that represents excellence in research in mathematical statistics, and/or excellence in research that links developments in a substantive field to new advances in statistics. In any year in which the award is due, the prize will not be awarded unless the set of all nominations includes candidates from both genders.

and is funded by Wiley. I support very much this (inclusive) approach of “recognizing the importance of women in statistics”, without creating a prize restricted to women nominees (and hence exclusive).  Thanks to the members of the Program Committee of the Bernoulli Society for setting that prize and to Nancy Reid in particular.

Ethel Newbold was a British statistician who worked during WWI in the Ministry of Munitions and then became a member of the newly created Medical Research Council, working on medical and industrial studies. She was the first woman to receive the Guy Medal in Silver in 1928. Just to stress that much remains to be done towards gender balance, the second and last woman to get a Guy Medal in Silver is Sylvia Richardson, in 2009… (In addition, Valerie Isham, Nicky Best, and Fiona Steele got a Guy Medal in Bronze, out of the 71 so far awarded, while no woman ever got a Guy Medal in Gold.) Funny occurrences of coincidence: Ethel May Newbold was educated at Tunbridge Wells, the place where Bayes was a minister, while Sylvia is now head of the Medical Research Council biostatistics unit in Cambridge.

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