For her contributions to the foundations of statistics that significantly advanced the frontiers of statistics, and for insight that transformed understanding of parametric statistical inference, Nancy Reid is the inaugural recipient of the David R. Cox Foundations of Statistics Award, presented by the American Statistical Association. Professor Reid will formally receive the award and deliver a lecture at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Toronto in August. Reid, university professor of statistical sciences at the University of Toronto, co-authored with David Cox a 1987 Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series B discussion paper titled “Parameter Orthogonality and Approximate Conditional Inference.” With this paper, and subsequent work with Cox and others, Reid has made major contributions to higher-order inference and various aspects of conditioning.

In addition to her work in foundational areas of statistics, Reid has successfully pursued numerous other lines of research, contributing to experimental design, nonparametric statistics, robust statistics, and comparisons and contradictions between Bayesian and frequentist inference.

The David R. Cox Foundations of Statistics Award was created in 2022 through an endowment created by Deborah G. Mayo, professor emerita of philosophy at Virginia Tech. The ASA presents the award in odd-numbered years. The recipient receives a $2,000 honorarium and is invited to give a lecture at the Joint Statistical Meetings.