This annual
award recognizes an outstanding
accomplishment or sustained contribution at the intersection of the
statistical
profession and national defense.
2009
Distinguished Achievement Award
The
Section on
Statistics in Defense and National Security is proud to announce that
this
year’s Distinguished Achievement Award was given to John E. Rolph, Professor
of Statistics at
the
Marshall School of Business in Los Angeles, California. The award was presented
during the SDNS mixer
at JSM. The award
citation reads, “For
contributions to the statistics and defense communities, particularly
for
leadership and service on the Committee on National Statistics in the
National
Academy of Sciences promoting and improving the use of statistical
methods, and
more broadly testing and evaluation, in the development of defense
systems.”
While over the course of his career Rolph has
served the
statistical profession in many and varied ways, the committee found his
contributions to improving the practice of statistics within the
defense and national
security communities particularly noteworthy.
For example, Rolph chaired the Committee on
Assessing the Feasibility,
Accuracy, and the Technical Capability of a National Ballistics
Database, the
Panel on Statistical Methods for Testing and Evaluating Defense
Systems, and
the CNSTAT Workshop on Statistical Issues in Defense Analysis and
Testing; he also
served on the CNSTAT Panel on the Operational Test Design and
Evaluation of the
Interim Armored Vehicle and on the Oversight Committee for the Workshop
on
Statistical Methods in Software Engineering for Defense Systems; in
addition,
he is currently serving as a member of the Oversight Committee for the
Workshop
on Industrial Methods for the Effective Test and Development of Defense
Systems, all for the National Research Council.
Rolph earned an A.B. in
statistics in 1962 and Ph.D. in
statistics in 1966, both from the University
of California,
Berkley. After a short period in
academia, he joined
the RAND Corporation as a research statistician in 1969. At RAND Rolph held
increasingly senior
positions, including Head of the Statistical Research and Consulting
Group,
Associate Head of Economics and Statistics Department, and Associate
Corporate
Research Manager, Social Policy. In
1995
he left RAND to become chairman of the Information & Operations
Management
Department at the Marshall School of Business, University
of Southern California,
a
position he held until 2000. In
addition
to his position as Professor of Statistics at the Marshall School of
Business,
Rolph also holds faculty appointments in the USC Law School and
Mathematics Department.
Professor
Rolph has published over 60 peer-reviewed journal articles and book
chapters on
the application of statistical methods to fields as diverse as national
defense, health policy and law. Among his professional activities, he served as Chair, Committee
on National
Statistics (CNSTAT), National Academy of Sciences (1998-2004); as
editor of CHANCE (1992-1995); and
as associate
editor for the Journal of Business and
Economic Statistics (1981-1991) and the Journal
of the American Statistical Association (1972-1977).
The
2009 awards committee consisted of
Max Morris (chair), Pat Jacobs and Myron Katzoff.
In February 2010 the awards committee will be
soliciting nominations for next year’s award.
In addition to new nominations, the committee
strongly encourages nominators
whose nominations were not selected this year to resubmit them as
nominations
are not automatically carried forward.
For
more information, contact Myron Katzoff, chair of the 2010 awards
committee at mjk5@cdc.gov.
2008
Distinguished Achievement Award
The
Section on Statistics in
Defense and National Security is proud to announce that the 2008
Distinguished Achievement Award was given to Dr. Paul Ellner, U.S. Army Materiel
Systems Analysis Activity (AMSAA). Dr. Ellner
was nominated by Dr. David E. Mortin
also of AMSAA.
Dr. Ellner received his B.S., M.S.
and Ph.D. degrees in Mathematics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
He joined AMSAA in 1979 and, within his first year, he became the
coordinator of the Department of Energy (DOE) - Army methodology
working group on nuclear weapons statistics reliability
assessment. The methodology that Dr. Ellner
co-developed has been successfully applied to the assessments of
multiple DOE-Army nuclear warhead sections. As an AMSAA
analyst, Dr. Ellner
then went on to develop multiple new models and statistical
methodologies to improve Army and Department of Defense (DoD) reliability growth and
reliability testing programs. Because of his outstanding
technical skills and contributions in the area of statistics, he was
quickly (by 1985) selected for positions of significant technical
responsibility to include Chief of the Reliability Methodology Office
and Technical Expert for the Reliability Analysis Branch. In
these positions, Dr. Ellner
has developed new statistical and reliability analysis methodologies
for improving the reliability of multiple weapon systems, developed
advanced computer models used by multiple government organizations and
private sector firms, and developed new and innovative approaches for
multiple Army and DoD
Project Managers and contractors that have substantially contributed to
the improvement of their weapon system reliability programs. Dr. has
had a long and distinguished career and has been recognized as a
leading technical expert in the field of statistics and reliability
throughout the Army, EllnerDoD,
academia and the private sector. SDNS is honored to give him this award.
2007
Distinguished Achievement Award
The
Section on Statistics in
Defense and National Security is proud to announce that the 2007
Distinguished Achievement Award was given to Professor Donald P. Gaver, Distinguished Professor
Emeritus of Operations Research at the Naval Postgraduate School in
Monterey, CA.
Professor Gaver is a
native of St. Paul,
Minnesota. He served in the US Navy as an Electronics Technician and
earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees from MIT in 1950 and 1951.
He spent two years at the US Navy's Operations Group before pursuing
his PhD in mathematics at Princeton University. After receiving his PhD
in 1956 he was a Professor at Carnegie-Mellon University and a
consultant at Westinghouse Research Laboratories. He was co-founder of
the Statistics Department at Carnegie-Mellon University, along with
Morris EvaliationDeGroot.
He joined the Naval
Postgraduate School in 1970.
Professor Gaver is fellow of the ASA, IMS and AAAS.
He
is an elected member of the ISI and Sigmi
Chi. His research is in the
areas of applied probability modeling and statistical data analysis. He
has published over a hundred technical papers. Among his many
professional activities, he has served as chair of the ASA Committee on
National Security and was the founding Editor-in-Chief of an ASA-SIAM
book series on applied probability and statistics. He is a past member
of the National Research Council's Committee on Applied and Theoretical
Statistics. While on this committee, he chaired a subcommitee that wrote a
comprehensive
review entitled "Combining Information," which was published by the
National Academy Press. He has served on several NRC panels and he has
been a reviewer of reports and handbooks including the NRC Committee
Report on te Effect of
the Environment on
Military Operations and the Reliability, Availability, and
Maintainability (RAM) Primer. His research sponsors include the
Commander, Operational Test and Evaluation Force; the Army Missile
Command; NAVAIR; the Conventional Weapons Division, J8, of the Joint
Staff; and Director, Opertional
Test and Evaluation.
Professor Gaver has had
a long and
distinguished career dedicated to promoting statistics in defense and
national security. SDNS is honored to give him this award.
