Multi-talented mathematician earns NISS award

Jim Landwehr (on right) chairman of the Board of Trustees for The National Institute of Statistical Sciences (NISS) recently presented John Rice (center), professor and chair of the Department of Statistics at the Univ. of California Berkeley, with the 2008 Jerome Sacks Award for Cross-Disciplinary Research. The award was given at a NISS reception earlier this month at the Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM) in Denver, Colorado. On the left is Alan Karr, director of NISS.

Rice was recognized for his outstanding, diverse cross-disciplinary contributions to ion channel receptors, energy demand, transportation, astronomy and functional data analysis. Among Rice’s many achievements is the highly regarded book, Mathematical Statistics and Data Analysis (2nd edition, 2006).

The NISS Board of Trustees established the Jerome Sacks Award for Cross-Disciplinary Research in 2000 to honor Sacks’ service as the founding director of NISS, a capacity in which he served from 1991-2000. The annual prize of $1,000 recognizes sustained, high-quality cross-disciplinary research involving the statistical sciences that exemplifies the NISS mission to identify, catalyze and foster high-impact, cross-disciplinary research involving the statistical sciences. The recipient’s name is also added to a plaque that is housed at NISS.

“I am very surprised and honored to receive this award. Jerry Sacks is a pioneer in cross-disciplinary research, and I think that it is wonderful that NISS has an award named for him. Interestingly, my work in transportation, which deals with measuring traffic flow on freeways, began with my involvement in the NISS transportation project in the 1990s. Thanks to NISS for the award and to all of you for being here at this ceremony,” remarks Rice.

Previous winners of the award include:

Elizabeth Thompson of the Univ. of Washington; Max Morris of Iowa State Univ.;

Raymond Carroll of Texas A & M Univ.; Douglas Nychka of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Jeff Wu of the Georgia Institute of Technology; Adrian Raftery of the Univ.y of Washington; and Cliff Spiegelman, from Texas A&M.

John Rice’s webpage at Berkeley, http://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/rice/

National Institute of Statistical Sciences, www.niss.org

SOURCE: NISS