News Release

Inauguration of Akaike Memorial Lecture Award

The Institute of Statistical Mathematics and the Japan Statistical Society joint inaugural Akaike Memorial Lecture Award, selection of the first awardee

Grant and Award Announcement

Research Organization of Information and Systems

C. F. Jeff Wu, First Awardee

image: This is Prof. Chien-Fu Jeff Wu, first awardee. view more 

Credit: Prof. Chien-Fu Jeff Wu

The Institute of Statistical Mathematics (ISM) and the Japan Statistical Society (JSS) have inaugurated the Akaike Memorial Lecture Award under their joint sponsorship. The lecture will be presented during the Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting, a combined meeting of the organizations involved in the statistical sciences, and will feature a biennial lecturer recognized for his or her research accomplishments in this field. A memorial to the legacy of Dr. Hirotugu Akaike, we hope that this lecture will be a valuable stimulus to the minds of younger colleagues and contribute to the development of the statistical sciences.

The first lecture will be held as the planning session of the JSS for the 2016 Japanese Joint Statistical Meeting, which will be held at Kanazawa University from Sunday, September 4 to Wednesday, September 7.

As the awardee, ISM and JSS are proud to announce to have retained Prof. C.F. Jeff Wu of Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering.

Overview of the Akaike Memorial Lecture Award

The Akaike Memorial Lecture Award has been planned since 2014 under the joint sponsorship of ISM and JSS. We have named this lecture award after Dr. Hirotugu Akaike, who left a wide-reaching and influential legacy of research in the statistical sciences, and intend for these events to be both opportunities for exchange among statistical researchers from inside and outside Japan and to provide inspiration to young and talented researchers, contributing to further advances in this field.

Every two years, one lecturer is selected under the standards of the Akaike Memorial Lecture Award Nominating Committee from among those individuals who have, like Dr. Akaike, stood out as being ahead of their time, exercising an international influence over a wide range of fields in the statistical sciences (including mathematical sciences such as control and optimization, and mathematical engineering) and applied fields. The awardee receives an honorarium (100,000 yen), an award plaque, and travel expenses.

To promote the education of students and young researchers, the Akaike Memorial Lecture features a selected board of representatives who will engage in discussions after the lecture. The lecture and follow-up discussion will be published as an invited paper in the Annals of the Institute of Statistical Mathematics (AISM) or the Journal of the Japan Statistical Society (JJSS).

First Awardee: Prof. Chien-Fu Jeff Wu

Experience

1949 Born in Taiwan
1971 B.Sc. (Mathematics) National Taiwan University
1976 Ph.D. (Statistics) University of California, Berkeley, USA
1976-1977 Lecturer, Department of Statistics University of California, Berkeley, USA
1977-1980 Assistant Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA
1980-1983 Associate Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
1983-1988 Professor, Department of Statistics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
1988-1993 Professor and GM/NSERC Chair in Quality and Productivity, Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, University of Waterloo, Canada
1993-2003 Professor and Chair (1995-1998), Department of Statistics and Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
1997-2003 H. C. Carver Professor of Statistics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
2003- Professor and Coca-Cola Chair in Engineering Statistics, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, USA

Research Accomplishments

Prof. C.F. Jeff Wu has been a vigorous pioneer in the theory of experimental design, EM algorithms and resampling, especially bootstrapping. His research has addressed a broad spectrum of topics in statistics; let us describe some of his particularly notable accomplishments below.

He proposed a general optimal design algorithm using the fact that approximate optimal design problems become constrained convex problems and proved that they converge asymptotically to the optimal design. He examined the convergence of EM algorithms and obtained results under conditions that are applicable to most practical problems. He also made key contributions to the justification of the bootstrapping and jackknife methods from the viewpoint of mathematical statistics.

As experimental design methods were quickening the development of new products and technologies in Japanese industry in the early 1990s, Prof. Wu used advances in statistical methods to propose fundamental revisions to experimental design, based on the agricultural methods of R. A. Fisher and the robust parameter design method of Genichi Taguchi. He developed a new method called "conditional main effect analysis" for distinguishing among the effects of configuration, sparsity, the principle of transmission, and aliasing in factorial experiments, thereby contributing greatly to the development of the technometrics field.

Recently, Prof. Wu has devoted attention to virtual experiments on computers, in search of principles beyond those identified by Fisher for problems examined with numerical experiments.

Reasons for Award

Prof. Wu has conducted vigorous and pioneering work on the theory of experimental design, EM algorithms and resampling. His support of industry has also been highly valued and he has received many awards in statistical quality control. He has long recognized the importance of data science; on entering his post as H. C. Carver Professor at Michigan University in 1997, he gave a speech titled "Statistics = Data Science?" in which he emphasized the role of analysis of large volumes of data and cooperation with people in fields outside of statistics. More recently, he has proposed new methods for experimental design, adapted to the procedures of experiments performed on computers (simulations). Prof. Wu has maintained an exemplary balance among theory, procedure and applications in his research. Since he first came to Japan in 1987 together with Prof. G. E. P. Box to observe quality control in industries, he has visited this country many times and continued exchanges with Japanese statisticians and the industrial sector.

Prof. Wu has also visited ISM on several occasions to lecture and engage in discussions and debates with our young researchers. On the strength of Prof. Wu's record of research achievements as a statistician and his strong links with ISM and JSS, the nominating committee was proud to recommend Prof. Wu as an entirely appropriate awardee to deliver the first Akaike Memorial Lecture.

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Akaike Memorial Lecture 2016

Speaker: Prof. C.F. Jeff Wu
(Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Industrial and Systems Engineering)
Title: A fresh look at effect aliasing and interactions: some new wine in old bottle
Date and Time: September 5, 2016, 15:30-17:30
Place: Kakuma Campus, Kanazawa University
http://www.kanazawa-u.ac.jp/e/campuses/

Japanese


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