Sharon-Lise Normand receives Cupples Award

The 2015 L. Adrienne Cupples Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research and Service in Biostatistics has been awarded to Sharon-Lise Normand, professor of biostatistics at Harvard Medical School and Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Sharon-Lise Normand, left, accepts award from L. Adrienne Cupples, Harvard SPH professor of biostatistics.

Sharon-Lise Normand, left, accepts award from L. Adrienne Cupples, Harvard SPH professor of biostatistics.

Dr. Normand delivered a presentation, Approaches to Comparative Effectiveness Estimation in Prospective Observational Data. Dr. Normand received the award for her research on the development of statistical methods for health services research, and for her inquiries into methods for the analysis of patterns of treatment and quality of care for patients with cardiovascular disease and with mental disorders. Her research also focuses on the development of statistical methods for health services research, primarily using Bayesian approaches to problem solving, including assessment of quality of care, methods for causal inference, provider profiling, meta-analysis, and latent variable modeling.

She has also been a leader in the development of methods for the analysis of patterns of treatment and quality of care for patients with cardiovascular disease and with mental disorders. Prof. Normand’s more than 290 peer-reviewed publications have appeared in top journals and had a demonstrable impact on policy and the field. She has served as President of the Eastern North American Region of the International Biometrics Society, is a Fellow of the American Heart Association and the recipient of the American Statistical Association Health Policy Statistics Section’s Long Term Excellence Award.

The annual L. Adrienne Cupples Award honors a biostatistician whose academic achievements reflect the contributions to teaching, research, and service exemplified by SPH Professor L. Adrienne Cupples. Dr. Cupples joined the SPH faculty in 1981 and later served as founding Chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Co-Executive Director of the Graduate Program in Biostatistics. During her tenure at BUSPH, she has advanced the field of biostatistics through extensive publications in major journals and book chapters on collaborative and methodological research, development and effective teaching of a wide range of biostatistics courses, and mentorship of numerous graduate students and faculty.

To be eligible for the Cupples Award—which includes a $1,000 honorarium—the nominee must be an internationally recognized statistician/biostatistician who has made significant contributions to the statistical sciences through teaching, research, and service.

Gunnar Kulldorff, 1927–2015

Gunnar Kulldorff, a Fellow and long time member of IMS, passed away in Umeå, Sweden, on Thursday June 25. He was Professor emeritus in the Department of Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics at Umeå University. Gunnar received his PhD from Lund University in 1961, on “Contributions to the Theory of Estimation from Grouped and Partially Grouped Samples.” An obituary will follow in a future issue.

Ramanathan Gnanadesikan, 1932–2015

We have also just learned of the death of IMS Fellow and former President Ramanathan Gnanadesikan, who passed away on 6 July 2015. Ram received his PhD from the University of North Carolina. At Bell Labs for many years, and then at BellCore, he conducted research in data analysis methodologies, especially multivariate techniques including graphical and robust/resistant methods. He was a fellow of AAAS, ASA, IMS and RSS, and an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute; he had also served as president of the International Association for Statistical Computing. Ram received the 2009 Jerome Sacks Award for Cross Disciplinary Research. An obituary will follow in a future issue.

Nitis Mukhopadhyay 2015 Don Owen Award

The 2015 Don Owen Award, given by the ASA San Antonio Chapter, was presented to Nitis Mukhopadhyay by chapter president Jesus Cuellar Fuentes April 10 at the Conference of Texas Statisticians. Nitis Mukhopadhyay is a professor in the department of statistics at the University of Connecticut in Storrs. He earned his doctorate from the Indian Statistical Institute in 1975, and then taught for six years in the department of statistics at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. He joined the University of Connecticut in 1985. Nitis has authored six books, 14 book chapters, and more than 215 refereed research articles. His research includes sequential analysis and multistage sampling and selection and ranking. He was a project director for the Distinguished Statisticians film series for more than 20 years and the author of many interviews appearing in Statistical Science.

Xuming He new chair of Michigan Statistics Dept

Effective July 1, 2015, former Bulletin editor Xuming He serves as Chair of the Department of Statistics, University of Michigan. He will also be 2016 Chair-Elect of the Nonparametric Statistics Section of the American Statistical Association.

Hao Zhang heads Purdue Statistics Department

Professor Hao Zhang has been appointed the Head of the department of Statistics at Purdue University with effect from July 1, 2015. He succeeds Professor Rebecca Doerge. Professor Zhang is a PhD from Michigan State University, and works on martingales, spatial and geostatistics, point processes, spatio-temporal models, ecological statistics, and forestry.