The Institute of Mathematical Statistics held its 74th annual meeting at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Miami’s South Beach, from July 30 to August 4, 2011. The IMS highlights at JSM included the three Wald lectures by Greg Lawler, the Neyman lecture by Michael I. Jordan, and five Medallion lectures, by Jianqing Fan, Chris Holmes, Michael Newton, Sylvia Richardson, and Qi-Man Shao (see photos in the PDF Bulletin on page 5). The IMS awards session included the presentation of IMS Fellows (photo on page 3), the Carver Award (to Ross Leadbetter—page 5) and the Laha Travel Award recipients (page 7). It was followed by Peter Hall’s Presidential Address, which is reproduced on pages 12–14 of the PDF issue, and here.

Miami in August is hot and very humid, but despite that, many attendees said that they liked the Art Deco district, the Cuban restaurants, and of course, the beach. With temperatures outside in the mid-90s (about 34ºC) and humidity at around 85%, the 5,000+ participants were certainly grateful for the air-conditioning!

At the Business Meeting, outgoing President Peter Hall summarized IMS activities over the previous year, and paid tribute to all those who have worked on IMS committees. He thanked former Past-president Mike Steele, who has now finished his term on the Executive Committee, for his role in shepherding the institute’s financial resources.

Peter passed the gavel to the new President, Ruth Williams. Ruth will introduce herself to IMS Bulletin readers in the next issue [October/November 2011], and will describe a few of the IMS activities that are planned or already underway.