TITLE:   Statistics in Service to the Nation

SPEAKER: Professor Stephen Fienberg

ABSTRACT:

All too often academic statisticians think of their role as the
production of new theory and methods.  But at least as important is the
role we can fulfill in support national  activities and projects
requiring statistical insights and rigor. Many (but far from all) of
these are based at the National Research Council and its committees and
panels.  I will illustrate the value and creativity of statistical
thinking in a diverse set of projects that span the past half
century---from the "National Halothane Study" through "The Polygraph and
Lie Detection."  A crucial feature of several of these activities has
been the impetus for development of new research.  I will also emphasize
the role I believe statisticians  should be playing in such activities
in the future.