2007 Diary

These are some of the undertakings and travellings of members of the Department of Statistics during 2007. There are omissions.

Promotions

During the year a number of promotions took place in the Department:

• Renate Meyer to Associate Professor
• Rachel Fewster over the bar in the Senior Lecturer scale
• Sharon Browning to Senior Lecturer
• Rachel Cunliffe over the bar in the Senior Tutor scale

Jennifer Wilcock at the Biometrics Conference

During the Biometrics Conference at Coffs Harbour the Department's own Jennifer Wilcock won the prize for best oral presentation.

Statistics Teachers' Day

On November 30, Ross Parsonage and the AMA ran a Statistics Teachers' Day at the Tāmaki Campus.

Chris Wild elected to the Fellowship of the Royal Society of New Zealand

Chris Wild joins Alastair and George as our third fellow. This is a tremendous (and richly deserved) achievement. The election acknowledges Chris' very significant contributions to both statistical methodology and statistical education.

We should also acknowledge Alastair's work in preparing the nomination.

Marsden Fund Winners

Sharon Browning and Yong Wang have been awarded funding for their Fast Start proposals.

Marti Anderson has won a full Marsden award of $805,000 over three years.

Congratulations to Marti, Sharon and Yong (and commiserations to those who reached the second round).

Shobha's baby

Shobha has had her baby boy. He has no name yet and is a healthy 2.7kg.

Aerial drop may go ahead in Ipipiri Islands

An article in the New Zealand Herald, August 13, DoC wants aerial drop on Bay of Islands, quotes Rachel Fewster regarding her work on rodents in the Bay.

The graphic is incorrectly attributed to Stephen Cope who was a photographer on May 2005 trip to the Bay of Islands with Rachel Fewster, Adrian Walker, and Lynette Smith.

James Russell one of two winners of MacDiarmid Award

James Russell is the winner of the Understanding Planet Earth category of this year's MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year awards.

James has been on the late edition of TV One News, TV One Breakfast Programme, and National Radio's Nine to Noon programme.

Stephen Cope wins Professional Development Award

Stephen Cope's application to travel to the three day Interaction Design conference in San Francisco has been received favourably by the Awards Committee.

MacDiarmid Young Scientists of the Year

James Russell has made it through to the finals of the MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year awards, to be held next week in Wellington.

Richard Umstaetter's PhD thesis

Richard Umstaetter's recently examined PhD thesis has been awarded a UOA Best Doctoral Thesis Award.

Our congratulations to Richard on this significant achievement.

Rodent Invasion in Dominion Post

The Dominion Post, B6, February 21 2007 has an article on the work of the Rodent Invasion Project entitled Marking the rat tracks.

Wayne Stewart defends PhD thesis

Senior tutor Wayne Stewart ably defended his PhD thesis Local sensitivity of Bayesian methods to prior and likelihood yesterday afternoon.

It's been a good week for Wayne, with a jointly authored paper appearing in Journal of Bayesian Analysis last week.

Teaching Awards

Matt Regan won a Dean's Distinguished Teaching Award, and Rachel Fewster won a university Early Career Teaching Excellence Award. These awards are the latest in a series of seven teaching awards for the department at national, university, and faculty level since 2002 - a legacy of head of department Chris Wild, who has been behind each of them, sometimes even preparing the application without the applicant's knowledge!

Directions in Statistical Computing

In February the DSC 2007 conference was hosted by Paul Murrell, Ross Ihaka, David Scott, and Thomas Yee with over 60 international participants.

Award for Rachel Fewster

Dr Rachel Fewster has won an award for "Early Career Excellence in Teaching" in the University of Auckland Teaching Excellence Awards for 2006.

Alan Lee is Head of Department

Professor Alan Lee is the new Head of Department of Statistics. He takes over from Professor Chris Wild.

Rodent Invasion in Marsden Fund Update

The front cover and inside page of the Marsden Fund Update, 37, January 2007 has an article on the work of the Rodent Invasion Project.

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