COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship

The COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship (formerly known as R. A. Fisher Award and Lectureship) is a very high recognition of achievement and scholarship in statistical science that recognizes the highly significant impact of statistical methods on scientific investigations. The award was established in 1963 by the North American Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) "to honor both the contributions of Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher and the work of a present–day statistician for their advancement of statistical theory and applications."[1] The COPSS Distinguished Lecture is given at the Joint Statistical Meetings in North America and is subsequently published in a statistics journal. The lecturer receives a plaque and a cash award of US$1000. It is given every year if a nominee considered eligible and worthy is found, which one was in all but five years up to 1984, and in all years since. In June 2020, the name of the award was changed to its current name after discussions concerning Fisher's controversial views on race and eugenics.[2][3]

Past recipients of the award

Renaming of the lectureship

On June 4 2020, following national movements to fight systemic racism and police brutality in response to the death of George Floyd, one of the Lectureship award committee members, Daniela Witten (UW), started a discussion on renaming the Fisher Lectureship on Twitter as R.A. Fisher was a eugenicist.[2] A petition to "Rename The Fisher Lecture After David Blackwell" was initiated by Miles Ott (Smith) on Change.org. The COPSS leadership responded by soliciting input via an online form on the official website.

Harry Crane (Rutgers), Joseph Guinness (Cornell) and Ryan Martin (NCSU) posted a comment arguing against the renaming on June 13,2020.[3] They argued that the lectureship was established to honor Fisher's scientific achievement, not the scientist. They proposed to amend the description of the lectureship instead of renaming it.

On June 15 the Executive Director of ASA, Ron Wasserstein, notified its members that the leadership has recommended changing the lectureship name to COPSS. The process that led to the decision was unclear. Ron commented on Twitter that "There is no principle of greater value than the principle of strengthening the statistical community by moving forward to form a more just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive society".

On June 23, the name R.A. Fisher Award and Lectureship is officially retired and the announced recipient of the award for 2020, Kathryn Roeder, was to receive the award under the new name.[4][5] The chair of COPSS, Bhramar Mukherjee, also made the announcement on Twitter. In their statement, the COPSS mentioned that they retired the previous name of the award "to advance a more just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive statistical community."[5]

Other lecture series named after R. A. Fisher

Two other series of lectures are also named after R. A. Fisher:

See also

References
  1. "COPSS Distinguished Achievement Award and Lectureship". Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies. Retrieved 2020-07-01.
  2. Witten, Daniela (2020-06-04). "Thread by @daniela_witten". compiled by Thread Reader. Retrieved 2020-07-01.
  3. Crane, Harry; Guinness, Joseph; Martin, Ryan. "Comment on the Proposal to Rename the R.A. Fisher Lecture". Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  4. ASA. "R.A. Fisher Award and Lectureship". Archived from the original on 2018-08-15. Retrieved 2020-06-23.
  5. "COPSS Statement on Fisher Lectureship and Award". 2020-06-23. Archived from the original on 2019-09-30. Retrieved 2020-07-01.

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