**********************************************
**********************************************
San Antonio ASA Chapter Newsletter
May 2005, Vol. 18, No. 4
**********************************************
**********************************************
*** S. Lynne Stokes Wins 2005 Don Owen Award ***
The San Antonio Chapter conferred the Don Owen Award for 2005 on
Professor S. Lynne Stokes of Southern Methodist University. Dr. Stokes was chosen as
best exemplifying the Award's threefold criteria of excellent scholarship, dissemination
of statistical knowledge, and service to the profession.
Professor Stokes has had a distinguished career as a teacher and scholar and is worldrenowned for her work in sampling and censuses and statistical privacy and
confidentiality. She has made outstanding contributions to the statistics profession
including serving as Chair of the American Statistical Association's Section on Survey
Research Methods and as a member of the ASA Committee on Privacy and
Confidentiality as well as numerous other activities both nationally and with the Dallas
chapter. She was also a member of the National Academy of Sciences Panel on
Alternative Census Methodologies and on the National Assessment of Educational
Progress Design and Analysis Committee. Professor Stokes has been editor of The
American Statistician and associate editor of the Journal of the American Statistical
Association and is currently associate editor of The Journal of Official Statistics.
The Don Owen Award is presented annually by the San Antonio Chapter of the
American Statistical Association. The award, which consists of a plaque and a check for
$500, was funded this year by Taylor and Francis Group. The 2005 winner was
announced at the Conference of Texas Statisticians on April 1, 2005 in Dallas, Texas.
*** Nandini Kannan To Receive the Chapter Service Recognition Award ***
Professor Nandini Kannan has been chosen by the San Antonio Chapter to
receive the ASA Chapter Service Recognition Award for 2005. Every three years ASA
chapters have the opportunity to nominate someone who has gone the extra mile in
supporting their chapter in a very significant way. Since 1995 Dr. Kannan has served as
Chapter President or Chapter Secretary a total of six times and was instrumental in the
success of the chapter's recent career day. The inscription on her award reads "In
sincere appreciation for her many years of enthusiastic support and outstanding service
to the San Antonio Chapter and for her superb leadership and organization of Career
Day 2002." Dr. Kannan, who is currently Chair of the Department of Management
Science and Statistics at UTSA, will receive her award at the Joint Statistical Meetings
in Minneapolis this August.
*** Alamo Regional Science Fair Winners ***
The San Antonio Chapter sent volunteer judges to the 2005 Alamo Regional Science
and Engineering Fair on March 7th to help select those senior division projects that
showed excellence in the use of statistical methods. This years judges were Bill Alley,
Jacobina Alley, Billy Jackson, Norma Ketchum, Fran Laue, Joe Lucke, Howard Monroe,
David Smith, Ken Williams and Raymond Zurcher. Many thanks to Howard Monroe for
organizing the chapter judging and awards presentation and to Joe Ward for soliciting
vendor donations of software and textbooks.
The San Antonio Chapter awarded savings bonds, copies of statistical software and
statistics books to the winning students. The chapter awarded First place and a $250
savings bond to Richard Romeo of MacArthur High School whose project was titled
"Advancing Apitherapy: Least Squares Logistical Growth Curve Analysis of the Genetic
Transduction of Potential Propolis-Compound Test Organism Staphylococcus Aureus
Mutants for Use in Ethanol-Dilution Based Optimized Synergy Testing". Second place
and a $150 savings bond was awarded to Bryan Howell from MacArthur High School
whose project was titled "Flux of Monovalent Ions Across a Membrane After Exposure
to Pulsed Electro Magnetic Fields". Third place and a $100 savings bond was awarded
to Anna Haring of MacArthur High School whose project was titled "Child Resistant
Bottle Design for the Aged." Nine honorable mentions were also recognized.
*** Exxon-Mobile Texas Science and Engineering Fair Winners ***
The San Antonio Chapter also sent volunteer judges to the 2005 Texas State Science
Fair held in San Antonio on April 1st. High school projects from all over the state were
reviewed for excellence in the use of statistical methods by Norma Ketchum, Teresa
Kerr, Howard Monroe, Anuradha Roy and Johnny Weismuller. Thanks to the work of
Howard Monroe, who organized the chapter judging, and to Joe Ward, who solicited
vendor donations of software and textbooks, our chapter was able to present the
following awards: First place and a $250 savings bond went to Richard Romeo of San
Antonio MacArthur High School (who also won 1st place for statistics at the Regional
Fair) for his project "Advancing Apitherapy." Second place and $75 savings bonds each
went to a brother/sister team Gabriel and Priscilla Mendoza of El Paso Americus High
School whose project was titled "Vertical Transmission of West Nile Virus." Third place
and a $100 savings bond was awarded to Thomas Pardue of Houston Clear Lake High
School whose project was titled "Riemann's Zeta Function: Distribution of the Non-trivial
Zeros." Five honorable mentions received statistical books and software.
*** Wanted: Officer Nominations and Program Ideas ***
The Chapter is accepting nominations for the offices of President, Vice-President,
Secretary, and Treasurer for one-year terms beginning July 1, 2005. All persons
nominated for an office are required to be current San Antonio Chapter members.
Those nominated for President, Secretary and Treasurer are required to also hold
membership in the national ASA organization.
Got ideas for programs you would like to see? Chapter officers would certainly welcome
your ideas for programs you want to see next year-Fall 2005 thru Spring 2006.
Contact current president, Joe Lucke at lucke@uthscsa.edu with your nominations or
chapter program ideas for next year.
*** Year in Review ***
Fall activities included co-sponsoring the UTSA conference honoring the 60th birthday of
Ram Tripathi while in the spring we hosted two short courses, judged two science fairs,
took part in the Conference of Texas Statisticians(COTS), presented the Don Owen
Award to Lynne Stokes of SMU and welcomed ASA President Fritz Scheuren to San
Antonio.
Thanks to Joe Lucke, David Smith, Carolyn Oakley, Anuradha Roy, Shuko Lee and
Norma Ketchum for serving this year as chapter officers. Special thanks go to Ginny
deWolf who has done a wonderful job keeping our web site up to date!
*** Statistics Job Resource ***
The chapter would like to begin posting statistically-related job openings on our website
as a service to our members. If you have information about recent job openings you
think could be of value to the San Antonio statistics community please send email to
Webmaster Ginny deWolf at dewolf@ktc.com.
*** Upcoming Conferences in the Area ***
2005 International Symposium on Forecasting, June 12-16, 2005, San Antonio, Texas
www.isf2005.org
****************************************************
San Antonio ASA Chapter Officers 2004-2005:
President: Joseph F. Lucke, University of Texas Health Science Center
(210) 567-0474
lucke@uthscsa.edu
Vice-President: David W. Smith, University of Texas School of Public Health
San Antonio Branch Campus
(210) 562-5512
smithd2@uthscsa.edu
Secretary: Norma Ketchum, Brooks City-Base
(210) 536-3442
norma.ketchum@brooks.af.mil
Treasurer: Carolyn Oakley, Fort Sam Houston
(210) 295-8632
carolyn.oakley@amedd.army.mil
COC Rep (2005-2007): Anuradha Roy, University of Texas at San Antonio
(210) 458-6343
aroy@utsa.edu
COTS Rep (2004-2006): Shuko Lee, Audie Murphy Veterans Hospital
(210) 617-5300 ext 5539
slee@verdict.uthscsa.edu
Visit the San Antonio ASA website at http://www.amstat.org/chapters/sanantonio/
Webmaster: Ginny deWolf, dewolf@ktc.com