The NISS Distinguished Alumni Award is intended for former NISS postdocs or research associates who have had distinguished careers. Examples might include academics who have been promoted to full professor, and individuals who have had successful careers in business, or as leaders in industry or government. Only former NISS postdocs or research associates who left NISS more than 10 years prior to the awarding year are eligible for the award.
2024 Awardee
Adrian Dobra | Honoring his excellent work in Bayesian statistics and multivariate spatiotemporal models, resulting in advancements in public health, demography, and computational social science applied to disease risk assessment.
2023 Awardee
Murali Haran | Honoring his excellence in methodology and collaborative cross-disciplinary research in geo-spatial statistics, for exceptional service to the profession, and promoting and mentoring colleagues through his academic, research, and administrative service.
2022 Awardee
Piyushimita "Vonu" Thakuriah | Honoring her distinguished career assisting government agencies and private companies in finding data-intensive and technology-based solutions to complex urban and mobility challenges through strategies that focus on social justice, ethics in data and technology, environmental sustainability, and health and well-being.
2021 Awardee
Nancy J. McMillan | Honoring her distinguished career at Battelle and her leadership in the development of statistical methods and models for a wide variety of complex problems, including environmental pollution, bioterrorism risk assessment and forensic genomics.
2020 Awardee
Jennifer L. Clarke | Honoring her distinguished career and research contributions in computational biology, bioinformatics and statistical methods with applications to human health and plant sciences, and for her excellent service at the university level and in both national and international organizations.
2019 Awardee
Haibo Zhou | Honoring his distinguished career, his contributions as a research biostatistician, especially in environmental statistics, outcome-dependent sampling, and reproductive epidemiology.
2018 Awardee
Matthias Schonlau | Honoring his distinguished career as a research statistician in both industry and academia, especially his contributions in the area of survey methodology.
2017 Awardees
Shanti Gomatam | Mathematical Statistician at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The award recognizes Gomatam's significant contributions to the review and approval of safe and effective medical products.
Minge Xie | Professor of Statistics at the Rutgers University. The award recognizes Xie's research on the foundations of statistics and his longstanding commitment to his students and profession.
2015 Awardees
Jiming Jiang | Honoring his distinguished career and excellence in leadership through research, through education and through example as a role model for the profession of statistics.
Laura Steinberg | Honoring her distinguished career and impact through her leadership in realizing a vision for the intersection of environmental science and statistics.