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Department of Statistics

JSM 2015

September 1, 2015

Highlights of the Joint Statistical Meetings

It was another great year for the Department of Statistics at the 2015 Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM). This year, the Department participated in 165 sessions during the event.
The conference was held in Seattle, known as the “Emerald City” due to the lush evergreen forests of the area. The annual NC State reception at JSM was very successful, with more than 200 alumni in attendance. Montse Fuentes, the head of the Department, recognized and thanked the alumni for their continued support.

Fuentes also pointed out that next year will mark the Department’s 75th Anniversary. The Department is counting on its alumni and friends to help celebrate and is seeking ideas about how to commemorate this special occasion. Alumni and friends should be on the lookout for anniversary news on the Department’s website and in upcoming newsletters. Alumni and friends can also look for event updates and contribute ideas through our Facebook page.

There were also a number of awards and honors for our faculty and students at JSM.

  • Recent graduate Prithwish Bhaumik received the Laplace Award for the top paper among the student travel award winners of the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science of the American Statistical Association’s Student Paper Competition and he presented his work at JSM.
  • Recent graduate Sayantan Banerjee won the L. J.Savage Award, Honorable Mention for the Best Dissertation in Bayesian Statistics (Theory and Methods) presented by the International Society for Bayesian Statistics
  • The International Biometric Society Eastern North American Region awarded two Distinguished Student Paper Awards to Yichi Zhang and Runchao Jiang.
  • Webster West was presented the prestigious 2015 William D. Warde Statistics Education Award by the National Mu Sigma Rho Statistics Honorary Society.
  • Subhashis Ghoshal was recognized by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) with the very prestigious selection as the IMS Medallion lecturer.
  • Graduate student Jami Jackson received an honorable mention for academic achievement from the Gertrude Cox scholarship.
  • Montse Fuentes was recognized at the awards session as the retiring editor of the Journal of Agricultural, Biological, and Environmental Statistics (2011-2015).
  • Arnab Maity was awarded the 2014 Noether Young Scholar Award and delivered an invited lecture at JSM.
  • Erin Blankenship, professor of statistics at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and an alumna of the Department, was named an ASA Fellow.