the isba bulletinanalysis to be presented as the 2014 best baye-sian analysis paper at the twelfth...
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THE ISBA BULLETIN
Vol. 21 No. 3 September 2014
The official bulletin of the International Society for Bayesian Analysis
A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
- Sonia Petrone -ISBA President, 2014
Dear ISBA members, this issue of our bulletin isa dense one, and I will not take much space withmy message! Just some thoughts and updates ona few initiatives.
I think we all agree that ISBA is a Scientific So-ciety which has also the wonderful trait of beinga community, made of people who work on ma-ny different themes but share an interest for theBayesian approach and a lively passion for rese-arch. Yet our community is and should be open,open to new challenges, new ideas, and new peo-ple! Thus, two thoughts here.
Joint Initiatives. We want to keep enforcingthe collaboration of ISBA with other scientificsocieties and affine research fields. With this inmind, we are promoting an initiative aimed atenforcing the institutional presence of ISBA in themachine learning community, on which the pro-gram council is reporting below. We are also wor-king for new joint initiatives with the BernoulliSociety and there are Bayesian sections of natio-nal statistical societies, with which ISBA is happyto collaborate. ISBA has joint initiatives with theBayesian Statistical Science Section (SBSS) of theAmerical Statistical Association, including the co-sponsorship of the Savage Award. Let me take theopportunity to encourage SBSS and other Secti-ons’ members to join ISBA, if they haven’t yet!
At the same time, ISBA has Chapters who-se activity is crucial to promote Bayesian stati-stics all over the world - the Australasian Chap-ter (ASBA) , the Brazilian Chapter of ISBA (IS-BRA) , the Chilean Chapter (Bayesianos SO-
CHE) , the Indian Chapter, and the South Af-rican Chapter (ISBASA). Remember that ISBAsponsors, co-sponsors and endorses Bayesianmeetings: for information, visit the webpagehttp://bayesian.org/meetings/overview.
The Bayesian approach is crucial everywhereand we want ISBA to be actively present at thefrontier of research in statistics and probability aswell as other scientific fields. Once more, do nothesitate to contribute with suggestions.
On a light note for ISBA visibility, at the generalassembly at the ISBA World Meeting in Cancun,Kerrie Mengersen launched the idea of creatingISBA t-shirts! That sounds like fun and it
In this issue
ä FROM THE PROGRAM COUNCIL*Page 2
ä A MESSAGE FROM THE BA EDITOR*Page 3
ä ISBA 2014*Page 4
ä ISBA FELLOWS*Page 5
ä ISBA AWARDS*Page 7
ä OBITUARY: SUSIE BAYARRI*Page 10
ä STUDENTS’ CORNER*Page 12
ä NEWS FROM THE WORLD
*Page 13
ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT, Continuedfrom page 1. . . .
generated great enthusiasm - if you haven’t yet,take a look at the call for the t-shirt design contest(http://bayesian.org/forums/news/12919).
Lifetime membership. It is the contribution ofour members that sustains ISBA activities. It is ti-me to renew your membership! And to encourageyour colleagues and friends to sustain Bayesianresearch by joining ISBA. Also, do consider sub-scribing as a lifetime member! Funds from lifeti-me members contribute to the ISBA support forstudents and new researchers, through the ISBALifetime Members Junior Researcher Award.Yours would be a well worthy contribution... Besi-des being the easiest way to overcome the botherof having to renew each year.
Lifetime membership rates for 2014 are 900USD. They will have to be increased to 990 USD(15 times annual membership) in 2015, one mo-re reason to consider becoming an ISBA lifetimemember soon. In this way, you can sustain our
Society, contribute to ISBA support for youngresearchers, and even save some money in theprocess by doing it before December 31, 2014...maybe you’ll even get an ISBA t-shirt!
But if the lifetime membership is not for you,remember that ISBA has several types of member-ship. The regular rate is 66 USD per year and stu-dents have a reduced annual rate of 25 USD. Wealso have reduced rates for people who are fromand work in developing countries. Unfortunatelly,we cannot yet afford a free student membership,but we are working in that direction, starting withstudents in developing countries. We are also wor-king on discounted retirement membership.
As usual, you can find the latest Newsfrom the World of Statistics, at http://www.worldofstatistics.org/files/2014/09/September-16-2014.pdf.
I close my note this month with a vein of sad-ness, which I cannot hide, for the premature lossof a great Bayesian statistician and a dear friend,Susie Bayarri. I greatly miss you, Susie. s
A MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR
- Feng Liang [email protected]
First I apologize for the terrible delay of this Sep-tember issue. A couple of contributions are late -they indeed are worth the wait. Without furtherado, here is our special Sep-Oct issue!
We discussed the ISBA@NIPS initiative earlythis year. Yes, it is happening! Please find moreinformation about ISBA endorsed workshops atNIPS and a special ISBA@NIPS travel award inthe report from our Program Council.
In addition, you will find information on va-rious activities in our society around the world,including the upcoming 10th conference on Baye-sian Nonparametrics (BNP 10) and recent upda-tes from our BA Editor-in-Chief.
I hope you will enjoy the report on our Worldmeeting held in Cancun this summer, includingthe first elected class of ISBA Fellows, and win-ners of the Savage, Mitchell, DeGroot, and Lindleyawards, and the Zellner medal.
How can I forget about our “twice young” rea-ders? Our Associate Co-Editors of the Students’Corner Section, Isadora Antoniano and AntonioOrtiz, bring us news from Vienna, Austria onBAYSM 2014.
Twice-young Bayesians, please stay tuned forBAYSM 2016 in Florence, Italy!
A very special contribution in this issue, which Iprefer not to have, is the obituary for Susie. I hap-pen to have the privilege to work with her before.To me, she is not only a mentor, a role model, butalso a friend who is always so cheerful, encoura-ging, and kind. We miss you, Susie! s
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 FROM THE PROGRAM COUNCIL
FROM THE PROGRAM COUNCIL
ISBA AT NIPS
- Raquel Prado, Ramses H. Mena andMichele Guindani -
In the light of new technologies, the access tocomplex, heterogeneous, massive and dynamicdata sets has become staggering. Besides posingimportant computational challenges for their ana-lysis, such data structures demand the considera-tion of new statistical methodologies as well asthe re-consideration of existing ones. In particu-lar, within the last decade ISBA has witnessedan interesting fusion of Bayesian and machinelearning methodologies. On this basis, ISBA haslaunched an initiative aimed at highlighting theimportance and impact of Bayesian methods inthis new era of data science.
Among the first actions of this initiative, ISBAis endorsing a number of Bayesian satellite work-shops at the Neural Information Processing Sy-stems (NIPS) Conference that will be held in Mon-treal, Quebec, Canada, December 8-13, 2014,http://nips.cc/Conferences/2014/.
ISBA endorsed Workshops at NIPS
• ABC in Montreal.http://nips.cc/Conferences/2014/
Program/event.php?ID=4300
• Networks: From Graphs to Rich Data.http://gdriv.es/networks2014
• Advances in Variational Inference.http://nips.cc/Conferences/2014/Program/event.php?ID=4276
• Women in Machine Learning (WiML 2014).http://www.wimlworkshop.org
Also, within the above endorsed Workshops,a special ISBA@NIPS Travel Award competitionwas established in order to acknowledge the bestBayesian invited and contributed paper(s). Formore information see http://bayesian.org/forums/conferences/12460.
ISBA@NIPS Travel Award for best invitedBayesian paper
After a careful consideration by the ISBA Pro-gram Council the ISBA@NIPS Travel Award forbest invited paper has been granted to Dr. Da-vid Knowles. In his young career, Dr. Knowleshas provided important interdisciplinary contri-butions both in the Bayesian methodology and inthe development of advanced computational me-thods. The ISBA Program Council greatly acknow-ledges his work and congratulates him with thisaward. s
BAYESIAN ANALYSIS - A MESSAGE FROM THE EDITOR
UPDATE FROM BA
- Marina Vannucci -Editor-in-Chief
I am pleased to report that according to theJournal Citation Reports of the ISI Web of Know-ledge for 2013, published a few weeks ago, theimpact factor for Bayesian Analysis has increasedto 2.576 (from 2.417 of last year). This makesit the 7th highest impact factor in the list of 119
Stats and Probability journals.
The September 2014 issue of Bayesian Analysisfeatures a discussion paper by Michael Finegoldand Mathias Drton titled “Robust Bayesian Gra-phical Modeling Using Dirichlet t-Distributions”.In the paper the authors propose an alternative,more flexible, t-distribution construction. Unlikethe classical multivariate t-distribution, definedusing a single latent Gamma random variable torescale a Gaussian random vector, the proposed
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 ISBA 2014
construction uses an independent Gamma-divisorfor each component of the random vector. Theconstruction is completed with a Dirichlet pro-cess for adaptive clustering of the latent Gamma-scalars, each of which may then divide a group oflatent Gaussian variables. The resulting Dirichlett-distribution interpolates naturally between thetwo extreme cases of the classical and alternativet-distributions and combines more appealing mo-deling of the multivariate dependence structurewith favorable computational properties. The pa-per was invited by the Editor-in-Chief of BayesianAnalysis to be presented as the 2014 Best Baye-sian Analysis Paper at the Twelfth World Meetingof the International Society for Bayesian Analy-sis (ISBA2014), held in Cancun, Mexico, on July14-18, 2014, with invited discussions by Babak
Shahbaba and Francois Caron. The manuscript ispublished together with the two invited discussi-ons and with a contributed discussion from manyauthors, followed by a rejoinder. The issue alsocontains other fine articles on various topics ofBayesian statistics.
We remind readers that at BA it is now possi-ble for individual authors to submit manuscriptsfor consideration as discussion papers. Such sub-missions will first go through our regular reviewprocess and, if accepted, the Editor in charge andthe EiC will make a decision as to whether themanuscript can make a good discussion paper. Ifyou wish to submit your work for consideration,please select “Article with Discussion” when sub-mitting at EJMS. s
ISBA 2014
- Raquel Prado, Ramses H. Mena andMichele Guindani-
The ISBA 2014 World Meeting was held in Can-cun, Mexico, 14-18 July 2014. The ISBA ProgramCouncil would like to thank all of you who atten-ded the meeting. We had more than 420 atten-dees and a fantastic program with 4 ISBA lectu-res on Bayesian foundations (Berger, Fruehwirth-Schnatter, Mueller and Roberts), 5 keynote lectu-res (Banks, Pruenster, Richardson, Vannucci andWikle), 28 invited sessions, 16 contributed sessi-ons sessions, and more than 180 posters. We alsohad 5 superb courses: ABC, Methodology and Ge-netic Applications (Marin and Robert), BayesianAnalysis of Stochastic Process Models (Rios-Insuaand Ruggeri), Applied Bayesian NonparametricMixture Modeling (Kottas and Rodriguez), Soft-ware Engineering for Statisticians (Stokely), andSpatial-Temporal Models in Epidemiology (Sh-addick and Zidek). The short courses were gi-
ven on Sunday and Monday morning before theWorld Meeting officially began. The full programis available at:http://isba2014.eventos.cimat.mx.
The ISBA lectures on Bayesian Foundations willsoon be available to everyone on the ISBA websi-te.
We honored our first ISBA Fellows during theWelcome Reception on Monday 14 July. For thefirst time we had invited sessions that were orga-nized by each of the 8 ISBA Sections, and multiplespecial topic sessions that received the sponsor-ship of the ISBA Sections. This time we also hadthe first plenary Bayesian Analysis session organi-zed by the editor Marina Vannucci.
We extend our sincere thanks to our Mexicanhosts, especially to Andres Christen for a superb-ly organized meeting. Gracias Andres! We are in-debted to the generous support of our colleaguesat ASA-SBSS, CIMAT, Facebook, Google, MicrosoftResearch, NSF, the University of California San-ta Cruz, and of course ISBA itself (ISBA General,Lifetime Membership, and Pilar Iglesias Funds).This support allowed us to issue more than 70travel awards to a very diverse group of junior re-searchers, including students, postdocs and juniorfaculty.
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 ISBA FELLOWS
Finally, we would have not been able to putthis conference together without all the hard workof the Scientific Committee, the ISBA Executive
Board, experienced past ISBA officers, and the Lo-cal Organizing Committee. Many thanks to all ofyou! s
One of the fundations lectures delivered by SilviaFruhwirth-Schnatter.
The main room during a keynote lecture.
One of the everyday dinners.
One of the three very active poster sessions.
ISBA FELLOWS
- Sonia Petrone -ISBA President, 2014
The new ISBA Fellows for 2014 were presentedat the World Meeting held in Cancun, 14-18 July2014. This is the first elected class of ISBA Fel-lows, following the inaugural group of Fellowselected in 2012, on the 20th anniversary of thefounding of ISBA, to honor the members of thefirst ISBA Board of Directors and other individu-als who were instrumental in the creation of ISBA.
Fellows are elected by action of the ISBA Com-mittee on Fellows, upon nomination. The 2014Committee on Fellows was composed by JimBerger (chair), Jose Bernardo, Sid Chib, Jayan-
ta Ghosh, John Geweke, Luis Pericchi, Dale Poirerand Mike West.
The Fellows Ceremony at the World Meeting2014 was chaired by Jim Berger. A touching mo-
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 ISBA FELLOWS
ment at the Ceremony was when, keeping her atthe end, Jim announced the name of Susie Bayar-ri. All attendees stood up in a spontaneous, movedapplause for her.
Congratulations to the new ISBA Fellows:
M. J. (Susie) BayarriFor broad and sustained contri-
butions to the theory of Bayesianstatistics, especially in the areas ofselection models, queueing theory,hierarchical modeling, the calibration and valida-tion of complex computer experiments, robust-ness, model selection, and multiple comparisons,for leadership of ISBA and the Bayesian com-munity, and for serving as a role model for thegenerations of Bayesians that followed her.
Alicia CarriquiryFor her leadership of ISBA and the
Bayesian community more broadly,for her promotion of Bayesian sta-tistics in Latin America, and for herleading research on Bayesian me-thodology and its application, mostnotably on nutrition and dietary intake measure-ment.
Merlise ClydeFor outstanding contributions to
the methodology and applications ofBayesian statistics, particularly herinnovations in the areas of Bayesi-an model choice and model mixing,and for long term service and inno-vative contributions to ISBA, that have greatlystrengthened the society.
Dipak DeyIn recognition of outstanding
contributions to the development,dissemination and application ofBayesian statistics throughout theworld and excellence in teaching and service tothe profession.
David DraperFor fundamental Bayesian rese-
arch on model uncertainty, hier-archical modeling and applicati-ons of Bayesian decision theoryin complicated applied settings,for significant contributions to applied Bayesi-an problem-solving in education, environmentalrisk assessment, health policy and medicine, andfor significant service to ISBA and the Bayesiancommunity including extensive Bayesian educa-tional activities.
Stephen E. FienbergFor his outstanding and sustai-
ned contributions to the theoryand application of Bayesian sta-tistics, for his continued service toISBA and the profession, and forhis dedicated mentoring of the younger generati-ons of Bayesians.
Edward I. GeorgeFor his pioneering work in the are-
as of Bayesian model selection andBayesian computation, and for hiscontinued and effective service onbehalf of ISBA and the statistics pro-fession.
Michael JordanFor his outstanding research con-
tributions at the interface of Stati-stics, Computer Sciences and Pro-bability, for his leading role in pro-moting Bayesian methods in Machi-ne Learning, Engineering and otherfields, and for his extensive service to ISBA in ma-ny roles.
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 ISBA FELLOWS
Joseph B. Kadane
For seminal contributions inISBA’s development, theoreticalfoundations of Bayesian statisticalscience and decision analysis, app-lication of Bayesian ideas to fields ranging fromlaw to medicine (and nearly all scholarly fieldsthat lie between), and efforts to preserve scien-tific freedom and human rights throughout theworld.
Kerrie MengersenFor her outstanding research in
Bayesian Statistics, hierarchicalmodeling, meta-analysis, mixturemodels, complex systems, for pro-moting Bayesian ideas and tech-niques in a wide range of application domains,and for her leading role in the Bayesian statisticscommunity in Australia and internationally.
Eugenio RegazziniFor his deep contributions in de-
veloping de Finetti’s legacy in Pro-bability and Mathematical Stati-stics, with special reference to sub-jective probability, exchangeability and the foun-dations of Bayesian statistics, for his pioneeringwork on the theory of the Dirichlet process, andfor his leading role in spreading the Bayesian pa-radigm in Italy and internationally.
Sylvia RichardsonFor her influential research in
spatial statistics, hierarchical mo-deling, computation in mixturemodels, application of Bayesianmethods in biomedical sciences,epidemiology and genomics, andfor her leading professional service in dissemi-nation and evaluation of Bayesian statistical me-thods and practice and to ISBA.
Christian RobertIn recognition of his outstanding, broad and
influential research in Bayesiantheory, methodology, computationand application, and for his lea-ding active role in founding andpromoting Bayesian Statistics in France, in partas the only statistician ever appointed to the In-stitut Universitaire de France.
Judith RousseauFor fundamental contributions
in Bayesian theory at the interfacebetween frequentist and Bayesi-an ideas, hierarchical and mixturemodels, hypothesis testing, objective Bayes, andBayesian Nonparametrics, and for substantial pro-fessional service to the Bayesian community.
Fabrizio RuggeriFor outstanding contributions to
Bayesian statistics, especially in in-dustrial and engineering statistics,Bayesian inference in stochastic pro-cesses and robust Bayesian analysis,and for exemplary leadership andservice to the ISBA and Bayesian statistics.
Marina VannucciFor her outstanding research
contributions to the theory andpractice of Bayesian variable selec-tion techniques, and to the deve-lopment of wavelet-based statistical models andtheir application, and for her extensive serviceto ISBA, including service as Executive Editor ofBayesian Analysis.
Robert WolpertFor deep contributions to the
theory of Bayesian inference, espe-cially in the context of kernel me-thods, inverse problems, likelihoodconcepts, and Levy processes, and for sustainedcontributions to applied Bayesian statistics, par-ticularly in the areas of health, proteomics, andvolcano risk assessment.
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 ISBA AWARDS
ISBA AWARDS
2013 SAVAGE, MITCHELL,DEGROOT, AND LINDLEY AWARDS
- Wes Johnson -ISBA Prize Committee [email protected]
Below are the results for the 2013 awards,which were presented in ISBA World meetingin Cancun Mexico. The two winners of the Sa-vage Awards were each awarded $750 checks.There were runners-up in each category, and the-re were four additional finalists. All eight finalistsreceived certificates with additional text provi-ded for the top four. There were four coauthorsof the winning Mitchell Award paper and eachreceived a check for $250, and a plaque. The ho-norable mention paper had two coauthors andboth received plaques. There were two DeGrootaward books; each book was awarded $750 andall authors received a plaque. The Lindley Awardpaper had two authors and each received a checkfor $750. I also attach the actual certificates andprecise wording on the plaques in order to haveeverything in one email.
Savage Award - Theory and MethodsWinner:
Weining ShenTitle of Thesis:
Adaptive Bayesian Function EstimationIn recognition of his excellent contribution that
shows a deep knowledge of nonparametric Baye-sian theory and methods. He develops new me-thodologies for estimating density functions aswell as regression functions and studies theirtheoretical properties such as large-sample con-vergence.
Honorable Mention:Debdeep Pati
Title of Thesis:Bayesian Nonparametric Modeling and Theory
for Complex DataIn recognition of his excellent contribution to
nonparametric Bayesian methodology. He solvesimportant problems for modeling complex objectsassociated with complex data-types like millions
of genes affecting a bio-marker, 2D images, or 3Dclouds of points.
Additional Finalists:Sara Wade and Andres Felipe Barrientos
Savage Award - Applied MethodologyWinner:
Ole ManeesoonthornTitle of Thesis:
Stochastic volatility, jumps and variance riskpremia: A Bayesian state space approach
In recognition of her excellent work that ma-kes several novel contributions to the empiricalfinance literature. She develops modern numeri-cal Bayesian tools within a state space frameworkthat allow for dynamic modelling, and applies hermethodology to study the S&P 500 returns.
Honorable Mention:Osvaldo Anacleto
Title of Thesis:Bayesian dynamic graphical models for high-
dimensional flow forecasting in road traffic net-works
In recognition of his excellent work on the ap-plied statistical problem of traffic flow modellingand forecasting. He develops several dynamic gra-phical models which allow for simple computati-on in order to analyze complex road networksand applies them to study busy motorways in theUK.
Additional Finalists:Antonio Canale and Joseph Dureau
(From left to right): Katja Ickstadt (sessionchair), Ole Maneesoonthorn, Debdeep Pati, Wei-ning Shen, and Osvaldo Anacleto.
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 ISBA AWARDS
Mitchell Award:Donatello Telesca, Elena Erosheva, Derek Krea-
ger and Ross Matsueda.
“Modeling criminal careers as departures froma unimodal population age-crime curve: the caseof marijuana use”
Ross Matsueda (left) and Elena Erosheva (right).
Honorable Mention:
Chae Young Lim and Sarat C. Dass.
“Assessing fingerprint individuality using EPIC:a case study in the analysis of spatially dependentmarked processes”
DeGroot Award:
Noel Cressie and Christopher Wikle.“Statistics for Spatio-temporal Data”
Kevin P. Murphy.“Machine Learning: A Probabilistic Perspective”
Lindley Award:
Tim Salimans and David A. Knowles.
“Fixed-Form Variational Posterior Approximati-on through Stochastic Linear Regression” s
2014 ZELLNER MEDAL
The Zellner Medal honors Arnold Zellner, oneof the founders of ISBA and ISBA’s first president.The purpose of the Zellner Medal is to recognizeISBA members who have rendered exceptionaland distinguished service to ISBA over an exten-ded period of time, and whose contributions havehad an impact on the society beyond the time ofhis or her incumbency.
The Zellner Medal will be given every even yearto, at most, two recipients, selected by a Commit-tee consisting of three former ISBA Presidents,not serving ISBA as current officers.
The recipients of the 2014 Zellner Medal are
• Fabrizio Ruggeri (CNR-IMATI Milan, Italy)for “His outstanding service to ISBA and IS-BA local chapters around the world and hisfundamental contributions in theory, me-thodology and novel applications of Baye-sian philosophy.”
• Mike West (Duke University) for “A scien-tific life spent always at the top and a visi-
on of the future which became reality, fromthe work to establish ISBA as a society to itsconstruction on sound bases.”
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 OBITUARY: SUSIE BAYARRI
OBITUARY: SUSIE BAYARRI
M.J. (Susie) Bayarri passed away at age 57 on Au-gust 19, 2014 in Valencia, Spain, after an eighteenmonth battle with a brain tumor, during most ofwhich she remained highly active professionally.Susie was a past president of ISBA, and one ofthe most prominent Bayesian statisticians in theworld.
Susie was born on September 16, 1956 in Va-lencia, Spain. She studied at the University ofValencia, receiving Masters and Ph.D. degrees inmathematics in 1979 and 1984, respectively, withtheses on Bayesian statistics under the directionof Jose Bernardo.
Susie started her career in 1978 as an AssistantProfessor in the Department of Statistics and Ope-rations Research at the University of Valencia, be-coming Full Professor in 1998 and remaining atthe department for the rest of her career.
Susie’s husband shockingly died in 1984. Susiewas devastated but it resulted in her doing some-thing bold and completely different for that timein Valencia - she applied for, and won, a Fulbrightfellowship to go to the United States for a year atCarnegie Mellon University, appropriate becauseCarnegie-Mellon was a hotbed of Bayesian stati-stics. She spent the 1985-1986 academic year atCarnegie-Mellon on her Fulbright fellowship, andsignificant time there during the ensuing years,doing wonderful research on selection modelsand foundations with Morrie Degroot.
Susie decided to make visits to the United
States a permanent part of her schedule. Shewould visit the US from August through Decem-ber each year, focusing on research, while con-centrating her teaching in Valencia from Januarythrough June. Her US visits were first at Carnegie-Mellon University, then Purdue University (alsospending the entire year 1994 as a visiting pro-fessor) and, from 1998 onward, at Duke Univer-sity and the Statistical and Applied Mathemati-cal Sciences Institute (SAMSI). At Duke she wasadjunct professor from 2003-2014, contributingextensively to not only research but also graduateeducation. And at SAMSI she had numerous lea-dership roles, including being the Leader of theresearch program Development, Assessment andUtilization of Complex Computer Models, the soleSAMSI program during 2006-2007.
Susie made major contributions to both thetheory and methodology of Bayesian statistics,helping it become the prominent part of the scien-tific landscape that it is today. There is almost noarea of Bayesian research in which Susie was notinvolved, but her continuing long-term interests(spanning at least a decade) were selection mo-dels and weighted distributions; objective Baye-sian methods; Bayesian analysis of queueing sy-stems; Bayesian robustness; model criticism andp-values; model uncertainty and multiple compa-risons; and calibration and validation of complexcomputer models.
Susie was author or editor of five books andnearly 70 scientific research papers. For new re-searchers who might need an introduction to thebreadth and profundity of Susie’s work, one couldstart with her three papers that won awards: Sta-tistical inverse analysis for a network microsimula-tor won the 2006 Frank Wilcoxon Award for thebest applied paper published in Technometrics in2005; A framework for validation of computer mo-dels won the 2008 Jack Youden Prize given to thebest expository paper published in Technometricsin 2007; and Criteria for Bayesian model choicewith application to variable selection was selectedfor presentation at the Special Annals of StatisticsInvited Session at the Joint Statistical Meetings in2014. For a more philosophical/critical tone, tryher discussion papers P-values for composite null
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 OBITUARY: SUSIE BAYARRI
models in the Journal of the American StatisticalAssociation in 2000 and Bayesian checking of thesecond level of hierarchical models in StatisticalScience in 2007.
She was also highly active in major interdis-ciplinary collaborations including pharmaceuticalresearch and risk assessment. As one recent exam-ple of the latter, she worked with mathematicians,engineers and volcanologists to develop a quan-titative methodology for assessing the risk asso-ciated with catastrophic pyroclastic flows fromvolcanoes. This pushed the limits of what Bayesi-an methodology could do and would have beenimpossible without it.
As one of the few early female Bayesian stati-sticians, Susie served as a role model for manystudents and younger researchers (both male andfemale). She instilled her passion for researchin the five Masters and seven PhD students shedirected, most of whom have gone on to haveprominent research careers of their own.
Susie had major leadership roles in statisticalsocieties. In addition to serving as President ofISBA in 1998, she was Presidenta de la SociedadEspanola de Biometrıa from 2001 - 2003. Susiealso served on thirteen editorial boards, includingbeing Coordinating Editor of the Journal of Stati-stical Planning and Inference from 2001 - 2007,and was an organizer of 38 international mee-tings and conferences.
Susie was a central figure to the developmentof statistics in Spain and the world. Her extensivefunding (as principal investigator) by the Mini-stry for Science and Education in Spain providedan umbrella for dozens of researchers to colla-borate and develop their own research careersin epidemiology, biostatistics, spatial methodolo-gy, survival analysis, and foundations. Susie wasalso central to the research project “Consolider i-MATH” from 2006-2012, which involved over 300research teams from Spanish Universities. One ofher last leadership roles in Spain was servingas the principal investigator of the BIOSTATNETproject, a web-based collaboration of 180 inve-stigators at universities inside and outside Spainand at biomedical institutions. Her internationalstature was reflected by her also being principalinvestigator of major grants from the EuropeanCommunity and the US National Science Founda-tion.
Susie was an inveterate traveler, and loved theexplosion of Bayesian conferences that happenedaround the world in recent decades. She wouldoften be one of those who would close down thebar or the dance floor at the conferences. A per-sonal remembrance: Susie would often vacationwith my family or meet my family at conferences,and invariably the evening would end up witha dance contest between my grandchildren andSusie, all dancing unimaginably furiously andusually ending in a tie.
Besides travel and spending extensive time withher family in Spain, Susie had three other hob-bies. One was jogging, which she would faithfullydo every day for one hour, without really liking it.The other two were wine and food. Susie was oneof the original members of Verema - the interna-tionally famous wine society started in Valencia- and she became exceptionally knowledgeableabout wine and had a wonderful cellar. Throughher activities in Verema, Susie also became a se-rious food critic; indeed one year she won theVerema award as the top food critic of the year.After that, going out to dinner with Susie in Spainwas quite an experience; the chef and restaurantowner would constantly be at the table to makesure everything was perfect.
Susie received numerous honors during hercareer, including being elected Fellow of the Ame-rican Statistical Association in 1997, elected tothe International Statistical Institute in 1997,elected Fellow of the Institute of MathematicalStatistics in 2008 and, in a bittersweet cerem-ony during the World Conference of ISBA in July,2014, was in the first elected class of ISBA Fel-lows. The outpouring of admiration and love forher that was expressed by the attendees at theconference was inspiring.
Susie will be remembered. ISBA is creating awebsite where people can post remembrances.There will be an Objective Bayes conference inSusie’s honor the first week of June, 2015 and,fittingly, it will be held in Valencia; Susie’s dearfriend and colleague, Carmen Armero, is coordi-nating the conference. There will also be memo-rial sessions at major statistical meetings over thenext year, reviewing Susie’s extensive impact onstatistics and science.
Susie is survived by her mother Maria-Jesus,
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 STUDENTS’ CORNER
her sisters Clara and Cristi, and her brothers Eli-as, Carlos, Jaime and Jose-Luis. She adored hergoddaughter/niece Anni, and would bring her tothe US on long vacations.
Those who had the privilege of knowing Su-sie will remember her not only as an outstandingstatistician and tireless advocate for Bayesian sta-tistics, but also as someone lively, funny, and ex-tremely generous. She entered the hearts of eve-
ryone who came to know her, and will remain inour hearts forever.
Contributions can be made, in Susie’s me-mory, to ISBA, which has created an endow-ment fund at https://bayesian.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=33 to sup-port an award, prize or lecture (TBD) in Susie’sname.
Jim Berger, Duke University
STUDENTS’ CORNER
Isadora Antoniano and Antonio [email protected]
In the months since the last issue of this bulle-tin, many exciting things have happened. Notleast among them, the ISBA world meeting inCancun, Mexico. This time, however, we would li-ke to bring to you, our dear readers, news from Vi-enna, Austria. News from a Bayesian event whichmay not be so well known yet, but will certainlymake some noise in the future.
The Students’ Corner contribution for this num-ber is owed to Alexandra, Angela and Gregor,three ISBA juniors from the WU Vienna Universi-ty of Economics and Business. Normally, I wouldpresent them to you, saying how they’re kind andfriendly and incredibly active. As evidence of this,I would talk about their success in organizing thesecond edition of the Bayesian Young StatisticiansMeeting which took place on September 18-19 inVienna. But I won’t do it. I don’t think it’s neces-sary, since they are also very efficient and clearcommunicators. Therefore, I will rather use thisspace to thank them for their efforts and then lettheir report speak for itself.
News from BAYSM 2014
by Alexandra Posekany, Angela Bitto andGregor Kastner
Institute for Statistics and Mathematics
WU Vienna University of Economics andBusiness, Austria
[email protected]@[email protected]
After the successful takeoff of BAYSM – theBayesian Young Statisticians Meeting – in Milanoin May 2013, we faced the challenge of establis-hing this meeting not only as a one time event,but rather as a regular point of exchange foryoung researchers. Working at the largest Busi-ness University in Central Europe provided uswith the perfect environment for hosting BAYSM.The newly built university campus served as ameeting location with futuristic perspectives, notjust regarding architecture. Views on the futureof Bayesian analysis, as pioneered by young rese-archers, were presented, discussed and updated,leading to “a posteriori” views which allowed allparticipants to take home many new impressi-ons. A casual atmosphere during coffee and lunchbreaks, the lively poster session and the very so-ciable conference dinner provided everybody withplenty of time for exchanging thoughts and ma-king novel acquaintances.
Alongside the young Bayesians, the meetingwas supported by several “twice young” Baye-sians, in the words of Sonia Petrone. SylviaFruhwirth-Schnatter, head of the Institute for Sta-tistics and Mathematics at the WU Vienna Uni-versity of Economics and Business, provided uswith funds and helpful guidance throughout theentire process of organizing this conference. Mo-reover, several other senior researchers openhear-
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014 NEWS FROM THE WORLD
tedly gave feedback and spread insights amid theyounger. Among them were Sonia Petrone fromUniversita Bocconi and current president of ISBA,as well as the highly regarded keynote speakersChris Holmes from Oxford University, ChristianRobert from Universite Paris-Dauphine and MikeWest from Duke University. As the WU has va-rious groups applying Bayesian methods to tackleproblems in different fields, also local experts likeJesus Crespo Cuaresma and Paul Hofmarcher, aswell as Bettina Grun and Helga Wagner from Jo-hannes Kepler University Linz, took their part insharing their experience with the young resear-chers. For them, this meeting turned into a greatchance for gaining insights into a wide range ofperspectives on Bayesian analysis.
More than 100 participants from all over theworld joined the meeting, their affiliations inclu-ding universities in Bolivia, India, Japan, NorthAmerica, several African and numerous Europeancountries. This increase of international awaren-ess made BAYSM a truly global meeting whichfulfilled the purpose of providing a broad per-spective on young researchers’ possibilities at an
early stage of their academic or non-academiccareer.
In addition to attracting the attention of theyoung and experienced Bayesian community, wemanaged to attain the endorsement of ISBA andseveral external sponsors including nationally andinternationally renowned companies. This allo-wed us not only to provide a vast amount of travelsupport to more than a dozen young researchersfrom all over the world, but also to give awardsfor outstanding contributions. Let us congratulateLutz Gruber (UNIQA Best Presentation Award),Madhura Killedar (Accenture Best PresentationAward) and David Moore (Google Best Presenta-tion Award)!
More information about the conference, in-cluding the detailed program with extended ab-stracts for download, can be found on the con-ference website at http://baysm2014.wu.ac.at.Stay tuned for some video candy to appear the-re soon; but most importantly, save the date forBAYSM 2016 on June 19-21, 2016 in Florence,Italy! s
NEWS FROM THE WORLD
BNP10: BNP10 Solicitation for contributed talksand posters
The 10th conference on Bayesian Nonparame-trics (BNP10) will be held in June 22-26, 2015 inRaleigh, NC.
BNP10 will feature four special invited lec-tures, eight invited sessions, contributed talksand poster sessions. A proposal for a contri-
buted talk or poster can be made throughthe conference website http://www.stat.duke.edu/bnp10/ and should consist of a title and anabstract. Slots for contributed talks are limited.Deadline for submission of a contributed talk isDecember 1, 2014, and decisions about acceptan-ce for contributed talk is expected by January 15,2015. Deadline for poster submission is May 1,2015.
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ISBA Bulletin, 21(3), September 2014
Executive Committee
President: Sonia PetronePast President: Merlise ClydePresident Elect: Alexandra M. SchmidtTreasurer: Mural HaranExecutive Secretary: Steve Scott
Program Council
Chair: Ramses MenaVice Chair: Michele GuindaniPast Chair: Raquel Prado
Board Members:
2013–2015:Paul Fearnhead, Amy Herring, Jaeyong Lee,Havard Rue
2012–2014:Kate Calder, Maria de Iorio, Igor Prunster,Wess Johnson
2011–2013:Ming-Hui Chen, Chris Holmes, AntoniettaMira, Judith Rousseau
EDITORIAL BOARD
Editor
Feng [email protected]
Associate Editors
Students’ CornerIsadora Antoniano & Antonio [email protected]
Content 14 www.bayesian.org