History

The American Statistical Association Interest Group on Uncertainty Quantification fosters activity and collaboration on all aspects of the effects of uncertainty and error on mathematical descriptions of physical phenomena. It seeks to promote the development of theory and methods addressing description, propagation, computation, and interplay of different sources of error and uncertainty in analysis and predictions of the behavior of complex biological, physical, and engineering systems. This Interest Group serves to support interactions between mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, and scientists working in the interface of computation, analysis, statistics, and probability. Together with its partner, the SIAM Activity Group on Uncertainty Quantification, the ASA Interest Group on Uncertainty Quantification plans to organize an annual conference, sponsor minisymposia at conferences, publish a newsletter biannually, and maintain an electronic discussion group. Other societies that have formed UQ groups includes the U.S. Association for Computational Mechanics and the International Assoc. of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics.

Uncertainty Quantification is the end-to-end study of the reliability of scientific inferences.  Ideally, proper use of Uncertainty Quantification tools results in: 
(i) a quantitative assessment of that reliability 
(ii) an inventory of possible sources of error and uncertainty in the inferences and predictions 
(iii) an inventory of the sources of error and uncertainty accounted for in the assessment 
(iv) an inventory of assumptions on which the assessment is based. 
Often these results involve use of a complex computational model. Perhaps more importantly, Uncertainty Quantification defines a rather diverse community of researchers who have approached a variety of scientific inference problems from very different perspectives.