Our first full year of the History of Statistics Interest Group is ending, and I am honored to have served as the 2018 IG Chair. I had a lot of help from our officers and friends. However, I want to send a special thank you to Amanda Golbeck, Beverly Wood, Mike Cohen, John McKenzie, Hans Kiesl, Carol Blumberg, Margie Nemeth, and Martha McRoy who went above and beyond to make this past year a success.
Here is a brief summary of the activities we had in 2018.
- We participated in our first JSM. While we did not have a chance to organize our own invited and topic-contributed sessions, we did co-sponsor all memorial sessions, and we will continue this practice for future JSMs.
- We hosted a table at the JSM 2018 in Vancouver, handing out four different postcards showcasing famous statisticians as well as a historical crossword (subsequently published in Significance), word searches, and a matching game.
- We held the first annual open meeting/mixer of the group at JSM 2018.
- Besides the memorial sessions, we will sponsor invited and topic-contributed sessions at JSM 2019 describing the history of censuses, historical data sets, and the impacts of statisticians in the past.
- We were asked for inputs on a revised history of statistics timeline to be published by Significance
- We forged relationships with other statistics and mathematics societies, such as the IMS and the RSS.
I know that 2019 is going to be an even better year with your support!
Attendees at the IG mixer/meeting JSM 2018. Back Row (left to right): Hans Kiesl, John McKenzie, Michael Anderson, Kelson Zawack, Peter Guttorp, and Amanda Golbeck. Front Row (left to right): Michael P. Cohen, Lee Kennedy-Schaffer, Wendy Martinez, Martha Rozsi, and Marcia A. Ciol. The person behind the camera was Beverly Wood.