Librarian Margaret Fulford and Professor Jeffrey S. Rosenthal, University of Toronto, write:

IMS journals

The Institute for Mathematical Statistics (IMS) produces four flagship “Annals” research journals: The Annals of Statistics, of Probability, of Applied Probability, and of Applied Statistics. This led us to wonder which authors have accomplished the “Quadfecta” of publishing at least one paper in all four of these journals.

To investigate this question, we used MathSciNet to retrieve citations for all articles in the two “Applied” Annals. We then wrote a computer script to extract and compare all of the corresponding Mathematical Reviews author identification numbers, identifying 88 in common. Finally, we performed additional MathSciNet searches to determine which of those 88 authors had also published in the other two Annals (and when).

To our surprise, we found a total of 23 authors who have completed this Annals Quadfecta (see Table 1) — quite a high number, especially since the most recent Annals (of Applied Statistics) only commenced in 2007. These authors span quite a time frame, with year of first publication (in any journal) ranging from 1965 to 2012. But they have all accomplished the same special feat, of publishing at least once in all four of the IMS Annals journals.

We look forward to revisiting this question in future years, to see how quickly this “Annals Quadfecta” list grows, as time goes by.

Table 1: A list of all 23 authors who have published in all four IMS Annals journals, showing their name, Mathematical Reviews author identification number, year of first publication in any MathSciNet-indexed journal, year of first publication in each of the four Annals, and year in which they completed their Quadfecta. (The list is ordered by Quadfecta year, and alphabetically by name within each year.)