Peter McCullagh, John D. MacArthur Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of Chicago, will visit the Texas A&M University campus later this week as the guest speaker for the biennial Emanuel Parzen Prize Lecture Series, sponsored by the Texas A&M Department of Statistics.
McCullagh will present an 11:30 a.m. public lecture, “Statistics of Speciation and the Evolution of Reproductive Isolation,” Friday (March 3) in the Room 150 of the John R. Blocker Building as a co-recipient of the 2022 Emanuel and Carol Parzen Prize for Statistical Innovation. The presentation is free and open to the public.
The Parzen Prize is named for Emanuel Parzen, longtime distinguished professor of statistics at Texas A&M who passed away February 6, 2016. Established through the Texas A&M Foundation and first awarded in 1994 to recognize Parzen’s 65th birthday, it is presented in even-numbered years to North American statisticians in recognition of outstanding careers in the discipline and profession of statistics. In addition to an invitation to deliver the Parzen Prize Lecture, recipients receive a citation and a $1,000 honorarium plus travel expenses.
An elected fellow of the Royal Society (1994) and the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences (2002), McCullagh has made wide-ranging contributions to statistical theory and methods through his work, which seeks to develop a mathematical foundation for statistical models. His research interests include linear models, asymptotic approximation, statistical theory, statistical methods and applications. McCullagh is a co-author along with John Nelder of Generalized Linear Models (1983, 2nd edition 2018), a seminal text on its subject, as well as author of both Tensor Methods in Statistics (1987; 2nd edition 2018), a pioneering exploitation of tensor methods applied to distributional problems arising in statistics, and Ten Projects in Applied Statistics (Springer, 2023). In 1990, he received the prestigious COPSS (Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies) Presidents' Award. In addition, he is a past Scientific Advisory Panel member of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Emanuel Parzen, who joined the Texas A&M Statistics faculty in 1978, retired in 2009 as distinguished professor emeritus of statistics but remained active in his research. In 1994, he was awarded the Samuel S. Wilks Memorial Medal of the American Statistical Association “for outstanding research in time-series analysis, especially for his innovative introduction of reproducing kernel spaces, spectral analysis and spectrum smoothing; for pioneering contributions in quantile and density quantile functions and estimation; for unusually successful and influential textbooks in probability and stochastic processes; for excellent and enthusiastic teaching and dissemination of statistical knowledge; and for a commitment to service on society councils, government advisory committees and editorial boards.” In 2005, Parzen received the Gottfried E. Noether Award “for a lifetime of outstanding achievements and contributions in the field of nonparametric statistics, both in research and teaching.”
Carol Parzen, who earned her master’s of science in adult extension education from Texas A&M in 1981, has had diverse careers in the community. She retired from the Texas A&M Mays College of Business Administration and Graduate School of Business, where she served as assistant director of the CBA Fellows Program. The Parzens were married in 1959 and had two children — Sara Schandelson, a librarian who resides in Boca Raton, Fla., and Michael Parzen, a senior lecturer of business administration in the Harvard University Business School — as well as six grandchildren.
For more information regarding the Parzen Prize Lecture Series, please contact the Department of Statistics at (979) 845-3141 or view event information online.