Willem van Zwet Medal for special service to the Bernoulli Society
Details
This biennial Bernoulli Society Medal aims to recognise special service to the Bernoulli Society. The Medal is in honour of Willem van Zwet, who served Bernoulli Society and its aims in many special ways. Nominees should have records of sustained and distinguished service to the Society.
Description
Nomination can be made of any member of Bernoulli Society, who has not previously been elected President.
Nominations should be communicated by email to the chair of the Willem van Zwet Medal Committee by the declared deadline (see below), and should be signed by two members of the Bernoulli Society. They must include the name, affiliation, and brief curriculum vitae of the nominee, and a statement of no more than 1000 words summarising the case for nomination.
At most one award is made every two years. The medal will be awarded at a ceremony during the next World Congress. The recommendation will be based on sustained excellent service to further the aims of the Bernoulli Society. Excellence in research will not be taken into account, as this is recognised by other Bernoulli Society awards.
Previous winners
Professor Maria Eulalia Vares in 2021
Professor Thomas Mikosch in 2023
The Willem van Zwet Medal Committee
The committee has three members, at least one being a past president who will act as chair, each member serving a term of up to five years. New committee members and chair are proposed by the current and incoming Bernoulli Society Presidents after consultation with the Executive Committee of the Bernoulli Society.
Present members of the committee:
(from Jan 2023) Victor Perez Abreu (chair), CIMAT, Mexico;
(from Jan 2021) Florencia Leonardi, University of São Paulo, Brazil;
(from Jan 2021) Byeong U. Park, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea.
Past members of the committee:
(Jan 2021-Dec 2022) Wilfrid S. Kendall (chair), University of Warwick, UK
About Willem van Zwet
This medal is inspired by the dedicated service of Willem van Zwet, who passed away on July 2, 2020. Willem was a major figure for Bernoulli Society and for our community as a whole. In particular, in the decade commencing 1970, he was among the founding fathers of the Bernoulli Society. He served as President of Bernoulli Society (1987-1989) and as Editor in Chief of the Bernoulli Journal (2000-2003). He was the driving force behind the creation of Eurandom, the European Institute for Stochastics in Eindhoven, serving as Eurandom’s founding director (1997-2000). The medal also honours his significant and unceasing support of statisticians behind the iron curtain, which had a major impact there and earned him an honorary doctorate from Charles University. Willem van Zwet's life is an inspiration for future generations of Bernoulli members.
Nominations
The deadline for nominations was noon UTC, Monday 22 July 2024.
Publicity Committee
Details
The committee manages all issues related to publicity and the dissemination of information and news to members of the Bernoulli Society and beyond. It coordinates the publication of the Bernoulli E-Briefs electronic newsletter, and of the Society's print newsletter, Bernoulli News. It also manages the Society's webpage and social media presence. The chairman is ex-officio a member of the Executive Committee.
Committee Members
Alessia Caponera, e-Briefs Editor (Italy, until June 2025)
Bojana Milošević, Bernoulli News Editor (Serbia, until June 2027)
Corina Constantinescu, Chair (United Kingdom, until December 2025)
Publicity Committee
Details
Publicity Committee
The committee manages all issues related to publicity and the dissemination of information and news to members of the Bernoulli Society and beyond. It coordinates the publication of the Bernoulli E-Briefs electronic newsletter, and of the Society's print newsletter, Bernoulli News. It also manages the Society's webpage and social media presence. The chairman is ex-officio a member of the Executive Committee.
Committee Members
Carlos Amendola, E-Briefs Editor (Germany, until July 2021)
Soutir Bandyopadhyay, Web Editor (USA, until June 2021)
Corina Constantinescu, Twitter Editor (UK, until June 2022)
Manuele Leonelli, Bernoulli News Editor (UK, until June 2023)
Victor Panaretos, Chair (Switzerland, until Feb 2020)
Past Prize Recipients
Details
2015: Judith Rousseau (CREST–ENSAE, Université Paris Dauphine), awarded at the ISI World Statistics Congress 2015, Rio de Janeiro.
2017: Richard Nickl (University of Cambridge), awarded at the ISI World Statistics Congress 2017, Marrakesh.
2019: Mathias Drton (University of Washington, Technische Universität München), awarded at the ISI World Statistics Congress 2019, Kuala Lumpur.
2021: Marloes Maathuis (ETH Zürich), awarded at the ISI World Statistics Congress 2021, The Hague (virtual).
2023: Lester Mackey (Microsoft Research New England, Stanford University), awarded at the ISI World Statistics Congress 2023, Ottawa.
Past meetings
Details
Past meetings sponsored by the Bernoulli Society:
Extreme Value Analysis (EVA 2023) in Milan, Italy, June 26-July 1, 2023. conference website.
Frontier Probability Days (FPD’20), Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, December 3-5, 2021, conference website.
(online) 7th One World Webinar by YoungStats: Novel Algebraic Approaches to Maximum Likelihood Estimation, November 15, 2021. conference website.
(online) Bernoulli-IMS One World Symposium 2020, August 24-28, 2020. conference website.
Semstat Statistical Network Science, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, March 6-10 2017, conference website.
Perspectives of Actuarial Risks in Talks of Young Researchers, Ascona, Switzerland, January 8-13 2017, conference website.
4th IMS Asia Pacific Rim Meeting in Hong Kong, June 27-30 2016, conference website.
Fractality and Fractionality, Leiden, the Netherlands, May 17-20 2016, conference website.
XX Brazilian School of Probability in São Carlos, Brazil, July 4-9 2016, conference website.
Frontier Probablity Days 2016, Salt Lake City, May 09-11, 2016, conference website.
9th Bernoulli-IMS World Congress in Probability and Statistics 2016 in Toronto, Canada, July 11-15, conference website. Pre-meeting for young researchers: July 7-8, 2016.
UK Easter Probability Meeting 2016, Lancaster, UK, April 4-8 2016, conference website.
30th European Meeting of Statisticians in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 6-10 July 2015.
60th ISI World Statistics Congress in Rio the Janeiro, Brazil, July 26-31 2015, conference website.
Extreme Value Analysis, Ann Arbor, USA, June 15-19, 2015, conference website.
19th European Young Statisticians Meeting 2015 in Prague, Czech Republic, August 31- September 4, conference website.
Methodological advances in Statistics related to Big Data, Castro Urdiales, Spain, June 8-12, 2015, conference website.
Algebraic Statistics, University of Genoa, Italy, June 8-11, 2015, conference website
Limit Theorems in Probability, Imperial College London, UK, March 23-26, 2015, conference website.
Perspectives on Actuarial Risks in Talks of Young Researchers 2015, University of Liverpool, UK, January 11-16, 2015, conference website.
XVIII Brazilian School of Probability 2014 in Mambucaba, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 3-9.
XIII CLAPEM 2014 in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, September 22-26, conference website.
UK Probability Meeting 2014, Imperial College London, UK, September 15-19, 2014, conference website.
18th European Young Statisticians Meeting, Osijek, Croatia, August 26-30 2013, conference website.
XVII Brazilian School of Probability 2013 in Mambucaba, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, August 4-10, conference website.
Perspectives on Actuarial Risks in Talks of Young Researchers 2013, Centro Stefano Franscini, Ascona, Switzerland, January 27- February 1, 2013, conference website.
XVI Brazilian School of Probability 2012 in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, August 6-11, conference website.
7th World Congress of the Bachelier Finance Society, Sydney, Australia, June 19-22, 2012, conference website.
8th Bernoulli-IMS World Congress in Probability and Statistics 2012 in Istanbul, Turkey, July 9-14, conference website, 750 participants.
1st Conference of the International Society for NonParametric Statistics, Chalkidiki, Greece, June 15-19, 2012, conference website.
Long-Range Dependence, Self-Similarity and Heavy Tails, International Conference in Honor of Professor Murad S. Taqqu, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA, April 19-21, 2012, conference website.
XII CLAPEM 2012 in Valparaiso - Viña del Mar, Chile, March 26-30, conference website.
8th Workshop on Bayesian Nonparametrics, Veracruz, Mexico, June 26-30, 2011, conference website.
Young European Probabilists Workshop (YEP), EURANDOM, The Netherlands, March 14-18, 2011, conference website.
ICM Satellite Conference on Probability and Stochastic Processes, Indian Statistical Institute, Bangalore, India, August 13-17, 2010, conference website.
An outstanding international event was the 2nd World Congress of the Bernoulli
Society and 53rd Annual Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Which was held in Uppsala 13-18 August 1990. Allan Gut was the secretary of the National organizing committee and one of the local organizers. There were 700-800 participants from all over the world and the congress was a great success.
Secretary of the Local Organizing Committee: Allan Gut
700 participants. For details see the “Report on Activities 2004” in Bernoulli News, Vol. 2 No.1 (1995)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:
Bernoulli Lecture: Herman Chernoff
Laplace Lecture: Adrian F.M. Smith
Kolmogorov Lecture: Peter Jagers
Chair of the Programme Committee: M. Eaton
Chair of the Local Organizing Committee: R. Leadbetter
4th. 1996 in Vienna (Austria), August 26-31
700 participants. For details see “Conference 1996” in Bernoulli News, Vol. 3 No.1 (1996)
University of Vienna
Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:
Bernoulli Lecture: David Donoho
Laplace Lecture: Michel Talagrand with E. Bolthausen, L. Lovasz and L. Birgé as discussants
Kolmogorov Lecture: Peter Hall
Stochastic Processes and Applications Lecture (now Lévy Lecture): D.A. Dawson
IMS Special Invited Lectures: J.P. Kahane and D. Stoyan
Royal Statistical Society Ordinary Meeting and a Special Lecture: P.J. Diggle and I.A.l. Wasel
Programme Committee
Friedrich Götze (chair)
Further members: Ricardo Fraiman (Uruguay), Richard Gill (Netherlands, ex officio), Takeyuki Hida (Japan), Iain Johnstone (Stanford, USA), Jana Jureckova (Czech Republic), Niels Keiding (Denmark), Rafail Khasminskii (USA), Pascal Massart (France), Pal Revesz (Austria), Richard Smith (USA/UK)
Local Organizing Committee
Georg Pflug (chair)
Further members: Imanuel Bonze, Wilfried Grossmann, Walter Gutjahr, Benedikt Pöttscher (all University of Vienna), Manfred Deistler (Technical University of Vienna), Helmunt Strasser (Economical University of Vienna)
5th. 2000 in Guanajuato (Mexico), May 15-21
550 participants. For details see “Reports on Recent Activities” in Bernoulli News, Vol. 7 No. 1 (2000)
CIMAT (Research Center for Mathematics)
Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:
Bernoulli Lecture: P.Donnelly
Laplace Lecture: I.Johnstone
Kolmogorov Lecture: S.R.S.Varadhan
Stochastic Processes and Applications Lecture (now Lévy Lecture): M.Yor
IMS Special Invited Lectures: M. West, I. Karatzas, W. Van Der Vaart and E. Bolthausen
Wald Lectures: N. Reid
Neyman Lecture: M.E. Bock
Programme Committee
Evarist Giné (chair)
Further members: L. Brown (USA), C. Cutler (Canadá), M. Fukushima (Japan), L. Gorostiza (Mexico), W. Kendall (Germany), C. Klüppelberg (Germany), M. Ledoux (France), E. Mammen (Germany), D. Mason (USA), V. Pérez-Abreu (Mexico), J. Pitman (USA), A. Raftery (USA), D. Siegmund (USA), B. Silverman (England), R. Tibshirani (Canada), J. Wellner (USA), R. Williams (USA), W. Wong (USA).
Local Organizing Committee
Victor Perez-Abreu (chair)
Further members: V. Aguirre, F. Avila, L.M. Briseño, M.E. Caballero, S. Cancino, A. Carrillo, M. Cerrilla (Conference Secretary), R. Dávalos, J.L. Enríquez, B. Fernández, U. García, G. González, J.M. González –Barrios, J.A. León, J.A. López, M. Moreno, M. Nakamura, L. Navarro, R. Quezada, L. Rincón Gallardo, J. Ruíz de Chávez, B. Trejo, J. Villaseñor.
Medallion Lecturers: Vladimir Koltchinskii, Evarist Giné, Cun-Hui Zhang, Alison Etheridge, and Dominique Picard
Programme Committee
Wilfrid Kendall (chair)
Further members: Gérard Ben Arous (Courant, NY), David Brillinger (Berkeley), Rainer Dahlhaus (Heidelberg) , Michel Delecroix (ENSAI, Bruz), Evarist Giné (Connecticut), Wenceslao González Manteiga, (Santiago de Compostela), Russ Lyons (Indiana), Enno Mammen (Heidelberg), Thomas Mikosch (Copenhagen), Susan Murphy (Michigan), David Nualart (Barcelona), Doug Nychka (NCAR, Boulder), Yosi Ogata (Tokyo), Chris Rogers (Cambridge), Roberto Schonmann (UCLA, Los Angeles), Michael Sørensen (Copenhagen), Simon Tavaré (USC, Los Angeles), Sara van de Geer (Leiden), Anton Wakolbinger (Frankfurt), Ofer Zeitouni (Technion, Haifa)
Local Organizing Committee
David Nualart (chair)
Further members: Joan del Castillo (UAB), José M. Corcuera (UB), Arturo Kohatsu-Higa (UPF), David Márquez-Carreras (UB), Carles Rovira (UB), Marta Sanz-Solè (UB), Frederic Utzet (UAB)
BS-IMS Special Lectures: Oded Schramm and Wendelin Werner
IMS Special Invited Lectures:
Wald Lecture: Richard Durrett
Rietz Lecture:
Neyman Lecture: Peter McCullagh
Medallion Lecturers: Martin Barlow, Zhi-Ming Ma and Mark Low
Public Lecture: Douglas Nychka
Programme Committee:
Ruth Williams (chair)
Further members:
Vivek Borkar (Tata Institute, India), Peter Bühlmann (ETH Zürich, Switzerland), Louis Chen (National University of Singapore, Singapore), Jim Fill (Johns Hopkins University, USA), Arnoldo Frigessi (University of Oslo, Norway), Peter Green (University of Bristol, UK), Peter Hall (University of Melbourne, Australia), Steve Lalley (University of Chicago, USA), Petr Lansky (Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic), Jean-François Le Gall (ENS and University of Paris XI, France), Makoto Maejima (Keio University, Japan), Andrew Nobel (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA), Marta Sanz-Solé (University of Barcelona, Spain), Qi-Man Shao (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China and University of Oregon, USA), Bernard Silverman (University of Oxford, UK), Mike Steel (University of Canterbury, New Zealand), Maria Eulalia Vares (CBPF, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), Keith Worsley (McGill University, Canada), Henry Wynn (London School of Economics and Political Science, UK), Bin Yu (University of California at Berkeley, USA)
Local Organizing Committee :
Louis Chen (chair)
Further members:
Bruce Brown (National University of Singapore), Yiu Man Chan (National University of Singapore), Sanjay Chaudhuri (National University of Singapore), Zehua Chen (National University of Singapore), Kwok Pui Choi (National University of Singapore) (Organizing Secretary), Tin Chiu Chua (National University of Singapore), Fah Fatt Gan (National University of Singapore), Anthony Kuk (National University of Singapore) (Co-chair), Koon Shing Kwong (Singapore Management University), Denis Leung (Singapore Management University), Wei Liem Loh (National University of Singapore)
Further members: Adrian BADDELEY, University of Western Australia
Vladimir BOGACHEV, Moscow State University Krzysztof BURDZY, University of Washington T. Tony CAI, University of Pennsylvania Elvan CEYHAN, Koç University Probal CHAUDHURI, Indian Statistical Institute Mine ÇAĞLAR, Koç University Erhan ÇINLAR, Princeton University Anthony DAVISON, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Rick DURRETT, Duke University Alice GUIONNET, École Normale Supérieure de Lyon Peter GLYNN, Stanford University Peter GUTTORP, University of Washington Onésimo HERNÁNDEZ, Instituto Politécnico Nacional Dmitry IOFFE, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology Sushmita MITRA, Indian Statistical Institute Shige PENG, Shandong University Dominique PICARD, Université Paris VII Kavita RAMANAN, Brown University Sylvia RICHARDSON, Imperial College Vladas SIDORAVICIUS, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica Instituto Nacional de Matemática Pura e Aplicada Michael SØRENSEN, University of Copenhagen Matthew STEPHENS, University of Chicago Guenther WALTHER, Stanford University Victor YOHAI, Universidad de Buenos Aires Nakahiro YOSHIDA, University of Tokyo Thaleia ZARIPHOPOULOU, The University of Texas at Austin
Local Organizing Committee
Elvan CEYHAN, Koç University (Co-chair) Mine ÇAĞLAR, Koç University (Co-chair)
Further members: Fikri AKDENİZ, Çukurova University Ülkü GÜRLER, Bilkent University Þennur ONUR, Turkish Statistical Institute Süleyman ÖZEKİCİ, Koç University Semih SEZER, Sabancı University Fetih YILDIRIM, Çankaya University
Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:
Bernoulli Lecture: Peter GREEN
Laplace Lecture: Anestis ANTONIADIS
Kolmogorov Lecture: Stas SMIRNOV
Lévy Lecture: Maria Eulália VARES
Tukey Lecture: Bin YU
Joint BS-IMS special invited lectures:
Doob Lecture: Yves LE JAN
IMS Special Invited Lectures:
Wald Lecture: Steffen LAURITZEN
Le Cam Lecture: Pascal MASSART
Medallion Lecturers: Sourav CHATTERJEE , Nicole EL KAROUI, Franco FLANDOLI,Alexandre TSYBAKOV, Van VU
Alison Etheridge (Scientific Programme Committee Chair) Iain Johnstone (Stanford) Judith Rousseau (IMS Programme Secretary) Tom Salisbury (Chair Local organisers) Fang Yao (representative of Statistical Society of Canada) Nakahiro Yoshida (Bernoulli Society Scientific Secretary) Probal Chaudhuri (Indian Statistical Institute) Song Xi Chen (Beijing/Iowa) Nick Duffield (Texas A&M) Pablo Ferrari (Buenos Aires) Michael Jordan (Berkeley) Xihong Lin (Harvard) Zhi-Ming Ma (Chinese Academy of Sciences) Greg Miermont (Lyon) Lea Popovic (Concordia) Alexander Tsybakov (Paris 6) Larry Wasserman (Carnegie Mellon) Alan Welsh (ANU) Nanny Wermuth (Chalmers/Mainz)
Local Committee Chair: Tom Salisbury (York)
Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:
Bernoulli Lecture: Valerie Isham
Laplace Lecture: Byeong Park
Kolmogorov Lecture: Ruth Williams
Lévy Lecture: Servet Martinez
Tukey Lecture: David Brillinger
Ethel Newbold Prize Lecture: Judith Rousseau
Joint BS-IMS special invited lectures:
Doob Lecture: Scott Sheffield
Schramm Lecture: Ofer Zeitouni
IMS Special Invited Lectures:
Wald Lecture: Sara van de Geer
Medallion Lecturers: Frank den Hollander, Vanessa Didelez, Christina Goldschimdt, Arnaud Doucet, Pierre del Moral
10th. 2021 in Seoul (South Korea), July 19-23
Virtual Congress. There were 755 registered participants from 41 countries. For details see the Congress Program
Scientific Programme Committee:
Siva Athreya (Indian Statistical Institute)
Further members:
Nicolas Curien (Paris-Saclay University), Steven Evans (UC Berkeley), Martin Hairer (Imperial College London), Ingrid van Keilegom (KU Leuven), Runze Li (Pennsylvania State University), Kerrie Mengersen (Queensland University of Technology), Hans-Georg Müller (UC Davis), Byeong Uk Park (South Korea), Qi-Man Shao (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Masashi Sugiyama (The University of Tokyo), Alexandre Tsybakov (CREST, ENSAE, IP Paris), Ming Yuan (Columbia University), Ellen Baake (Bielefeld Universit), Ioana Dumitriu (University of Washington), Ayalvadi Ganesh (University of Bristo), Tailen Hsing (University of Michigan), Takashi Kumagai (Kyoto University), Enno Mammen (Heidelberg University),Thomas Mikosch (University of Copenhagen),Judith Rousseau, (University of Oxford), Béatrice de Tilière (University Paris Est Creteil), Maria Eulália Vares (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro)
Local Organizing Committee:
Chair: Hee-Seok Oh (Seoul National University)
Further members:
Hwan Chung (Korea University), Yongho Jeon (Yonsei University), Eun Ryung Lee (Sungkyunkwan University), Young Kyung Lee (Kangwon National University), Johan Lim (Seoul National University), Insuk Seo (Seoul National University), Joong-Ho Won (Seoul National University), Kyusang Yu (Konkuk University), Woncheol Jang (Seoul National University), Panki Kim (Seoul National University),Woojoo Lee (Seoul National University), Chae Young Lim (Seoul National University), Seung Jun Shin (Korea University), Jae Keun Yoo (Ewha Womans University)
Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:
Bernoulli Lecture: Alison Etheridge
Laplace Lecture: Tony Cai
Kolmogorov Lecture: Persi Diaconis
Lévy Lecture: Massimiliano Gubinelli
Tukey Lecture: Sara van de Geer
Joint BS-IMS special invited lectures:
Doob Lecture: Nicolas Curien
Schramm Lecture: Omer Ange
IMS Special Invited Lectures:
Blackwell Lecture: Gabor Lugosi
Wald Lecture: Martin Barlow
Medallion Lecturers:Gerard Ben Arous; Andrea Montanari; Elchanan Mossel; Laurent Saloff‑Coste; Daniela Witten
Bernoulli Paper Prize Session:
Bernoulli Prize for an outstanding survey article in Probability: Leonid Petrov
Bernoulli Journal Read Paper Award: Soutir Bandyopadhyay
Sudipto Banerjee, University of California at Los Angeles
Riddhipratim Basu, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore
Krzysztof Bogdan, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology
Holger Dette, Ruhr University Bochum
Jian Ding, Peking University
Hugo Duminil-Copin, University of Geneva
Alice Guionnet, ENS Lyons
Ruth Heller, Tel Aviv University
Nina Holden, New York University
Regina Liu, Rutgers University
Ramsés H Mena, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Andrea Montanari, Stanford University
Johanna Nešlehová, McGill University
Sofia Olhede, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Roberto Oliveira, Instituto Nacional de Matematica Pura e Aplicada, Rio de Janeiro
Mariana Olvera-Cravioto, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Valentin Patilea, École nationale de la statistique et de l'analyse de l'information (ENSAI), Bruz
Sarah Penington, University of Bath
Annie Qu, University of California at Irvine
Gareth Roberts, University of Warwick
Janice Scealy, Australian National University
Stijn Vansteelandt, Ghent University
Valeria Vitelli, University of Oslo
Hendrik Weber, University of Münster
Song Xi Chen, Peking University
Thaleia Zaripophoulou, University of Texas at Austin
Local Organizing Committee
Herold Dehling (Chair), Ruhr University Bochum
Further members:
Axel Bücher, Ruhr University Bochum
Holger Dette, Ruhr University Bochum
Peter Eichelsbacher, Ruhr University Bochum
Roland Fried, Technical University Dortmund
Christof Külske, Ruhr University Bochum
Christoph Thäle, Ruhr University Bochum
Anita Winter, University Duisburg-Essen
Jeannette Woerner, Technical University Dortmund
Special Bernoulli Society Lectures:
Bernoulli Lecture: Emmanuel Candés
Laplace Lecture: Xihong Lin
Kolmogorov Lecture: Rafal Latala
Lévy Lecture: Rongfeng Sun
Tukey Lecture: Mihaela van der Schaar
Cox Lecture: Victor Chernozhukov
Joint BS-IMS special invited lectures:
Doob Lecture: Pablo Ferrari
Schramm Lecture: Patricia Goncalves
Schramm Lecture: Nina Holden
IMS Special Invited Lectures:
Wald Lecture: Peter Bühlmann
Medallion Lecturers: Moulinath Banerjee; Marc Hallin; Remco van der Hofstad; Chunming Zhang
Ruhr University Bochum Lecture
Ising Lecture: Frank den Hollander
Bernoulli meeting in Uppsala
Details
Some reminiscences and highlights of the Bernoulli meeting in Uppsala, August 13 –18, 1990
Strictly speaking, the complete heading should be Some reminiscences and highlights of “The 2nd World Congress of the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability and the 53rd Annal Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics” .
Anyway, it all began in 1986 in Tasjkent during the First Bernoulli meeting, when Georg Lindgren approached me while I was having breakfast at Hotel Uzbekistan and asked me how I felt about having Sweden, maybe even Uppsala, arrange the second Bernoulli meeting in 1990.
It soon became clear that Uppsala was the place for this event. One reason was that we were the only ones with an aula seating more than 1500 persons; Tasjkent had around 1100 participants and we had to be prepared for a similar number.
We soon formed a formal organizing committee with a nucleus consisting of Peter Jagers, Göteborg (chairman), Georg Lindgren, Lund (vice chairman), Allan Gut, Uppsala (secretary and main local organizer), and Lars Holst, Uppsala, later Stockholm (executive member). I think none of us was quite aware of the combination of work and fun that we had ahead of us.
Some immediate practicalities that had to be taken care of were to engage a conference bureau that would be the main responsible for some of the administrative nonmathematical tasks, and to fix a convenient time period in order to make reservations for the conference venue and for hotel rooms; after all if maybe 1000 persons would come here there must be a bed available for everyone. I also contacted Orphei Drangar (http://www.od.se ), one of the most famous and successful male-voice chairs in the world, for the traditional concert. We also booked the Linnæus garden for a welcome reception and the Uppsala castle for the banquet.
Next in line was the forming of a programme committee with representatives from the various areas of probability and statistics, as well as from the various parts of the world, and then to try to find the most important, hot, or otherwise attractive topics for sessions, and then to find chairmen who were willing to organize them. We also had to start worrying about a budget and to think about organizations who were willing to support the meeting financially.
Another idea that came up, partly in order to attract people from overseas, was to make it a joint meeting with the IMS. And, indeed, the meeting turned out as The 2nd World Congress of the Bernoulli Society for Mathematical Statistics and Probability and the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and was held in Uppsala, Sweden, August 13 – 18, 1990.
At this point it might be interesting to recall the state of the art and the world. We are now back in 1987/1988. At that time there was still an iron curtain running through Europe, and computers and email was not commonplace. A letter from Uppsala to Moscow could take 2 months, in spite of the fact that an aeroplane reaches Moscow from here in 2 hours; it should also be mentioned that a letter to the US needed a week or two (although the plane only requires 6-8 hours). And sometimes letters did not arrive at all. One example was a letter of invitation that we sent twice, in vain, to Moscow. Finally we were told that someone else who was now in California would be on the east coast in about two weeks time, so we sent the letter to the east coast with the hope that it would arrive in time to be carried back to the Soviet Union in order to be handed over in person. Needless to say, letters of invitation were vital for visa purposes.
Touching upon these problems we must also remember that money from eastern Europe was not convertible, so in order to have people from there coming to Uppsala it was important to exploit the exchanges that existed between the academies of sciences in Sweden and other countries as well as exchanges between universities, such as Uppsala and Vilnius, Uppsala and Prague, Uppsala and Bucharest, and so on.
In the Fall of 1988 we sent out a preliminary announcement – via ordinary mail to a large number of researchers around the world, followed by Bulletin 1 in the spring of 1989 where it, i.a., was stated that those who preregister will get subsequent information. Also by “snail mail”.
As time went on we received the abstracts, all in all about 550 of them. Once again we must recall “the old days”. This was well before template times. Abstracts arrived in various shapes; typed, hand written, on papers of different sizes, and so on. I recall one day I was lying with my son on the living room floor with the abstracts spread out around the room in order to arrange them in alphabetical order. Then the problem came of reshaping them into an abstract booklet. For this endeavour we had tremendous help from G.P.H. Styan in Montreal who (re)typed all of them and then faxed them to me for proofreading after which I faxed them to him with corrections made after which ... But we succeeded. The abstract booklet also contained lists of speakers and sessions and so on in various orders, something that in those days was much harder to create than it is today.
I guess it is by now clear that many letters to many persons were written, and that today this would be taken care of with one single email to “undisclosed recipients”. This should not be interpreted as hidden complaints, rather as a message describing some of the changes we have experienced over the last 20 years. I would, however, at the same time stress that it was great fun and exciting to be in touch with our research community all over the planet.
A most dramatic event occurred one month prior to the meeting. On July 16 we, the four of us, were going by car downtown when a definite smell of fire struck our nostrils. I said, jokingly, “that’s just the conference bureau burning down with all our abstracts”. And, indeed, it was! Upon our arrival there we found the fire brigade in full action. Since (only) the upper floor of the house was on fire I asked for, and got, permission to enter the ground floor in order to save the paper bags with the original abstracts that, as I was told, were put underneath a certain table. As I entered I heard a telephone ringing. In the Kafka like atmosphere I felt like answering “the house is on fire, we cannot take your call right now, please call back later”. Anyway, I found the abstracts and brought them out into safety.
The talks were of the usual format with a mixture of invited and contributed papers. One invention was that we created three very special named lectures: An opening Bernoulli lecture, which was delivered by Yakov G. Sinai, a closing Kolmogorov lecture, delivered by David G. Kendall, and between those a Cramér lecture by Søren Johansen. Subsequent meetings have kept those lectures and at times added others.
The traditional concert was held on Monday evening. The above mentioned male-voice choir Orphei Drangar, all dressed in tails (the penguin outfit), entertained for about one hour with a mixed programme. This was of course a particular joy for yours truly, being an active member of the choir at that time. I know that this surprised some conference participants, because later I was approached by a few who were convinced that I was standing there faking as a kind of joke.
In addition to some guided tours for accompanying persons (and maybe also for participants who skipped talks), Wednesday afternoon was devoted to the traditional excursion. One alternative was to visit Stockholm which is reachable in less than one hour by train, one was a round trip – one way by boat and one way by bus – to the 17th century baroque palace “Skoklosters slott” (http://sko.lsh.se/ default.asp?id=4620 ), and one was a tour to some Wallonian ironwork settings north of Uppsala.
The Thursday conference banquet was held in the big hall at the Uppsala castle. In fact, since we were 750 > 600 participants we had to split the festivities into two banquets. The main problem(?) with this was that I had to enjoy the gravad lax (salmon), the reindeer and the good wines on two consecutive evenings.
There was one rather important thing that we could not arrange or prepare for – the weather. August in Sweden can be lovely but also terrible. We were extremely lucky in this respect. Participants could visit outdoor restaurants in the evenings, and the excursions could take place without additional clothing or umbrellas.
To summarize, although the first World Congress was most successfully held in Tasjkent, I think we all (in particular the four of us) felt that the Uppsala meeting was the beginning of a new era in stochastics. One very successful ingredient was the jointness with the IMS, which has broadened the scope of the meeting, well, for the meetings, I guess, it goes both ways. It was also amusing to observe how several formulations from the Bulletins that we had sent out reappeared in the bulletins of subsequent meetings.
A local additional benefit was that the conference, and even more so the organizing of it, brought probability and statistics in Sweden together in the sense that we got to know each other more closely and, somehow, almost developed into a large family, not just into a professional community.
So, all in all, it is a lot of work to organize such a meeting, but it is extremely rewarding, not only personally, but also scientifically, in that Uppsala and Sweden is not just some unknown place near or even at the arctic circle. Rather, it is now known world-wide that some high quality research is going on here. And for many years I was reminded at meetings, “Oh Uppsala, such a great meeting”; although people mostly remember the concert, the banquet, the excursion, and the pleasant weather.
So to all of you I wish to say: Don’t hesitate to host a future meeting should you be asked to do so!
Allan Gut, Uppsala
Opening words of the first Bernoulli Congress
Details
The First Bernoulli Congress
Among the remarkable events of the 80s was the First World Congress of the Bernoulli Society which was held 8–14 September 1986 in Tashkent. The preparatory work was done by the Soviet Organizing Committee (Honorary Chairman – A.N. Kolmogorov, Chairman – Yu.V. Prokhorov, Vice-Chairmen – S.Kh. Sirazhdinov and A.N. Shiryaev). The statistic of the Congress is the following: 35 scientific sections, 100 forty-minute talks, 181 fifteen -minute contributions, 430 stand posters, 15 non-formal discussions, 3 round tables on topics: “Computational methods and tools in theoretical and applied statistics”, “Relationship between theory and applications”, “Historical aspects of development of probability theory and mathematical statistics”. The Congress was opened by written “Greetings” of A.N. Kolmogorov to the participants followed by the forum talk of A.N. Kolmogorov and V.A. Uspensky (at that time A.N. Kolmogorov was very sick and could not participate in the Congress; his “Greetings” were recorded in Moscow by V.M. Tikhomirov and A.N. Shiryaev).
A.N.Shiryaev, Moscow
Greetings of A.N. Kolmogorov
“Dear ladies and gentleman! Allow me to welcome you today to the opening of the Congress.
It is significant to me that the Society that has taken the name Bernoulli, a Society uniting specialists in just one field of mathematics – probability theory and mathematical statistics – has succeeded in organizing a conference of its fellow members so representative that it is comparable to international mathematics congresses. But if one thinks about it, then one can find an explanation for this seemingly paradox phenomenon.
James Bernoulli, one of the eminent members of the Bernoulli family, has entered the pages of the history of science by virtue of his many achievements. But two of his credits should be mentioned especially. He is the father of the science of probability theory having obtained the first serious result known everywhere as Bernoulli´s theorem. But apart from this, it should not be forgotten that he was essentially also the father of combinatorial analysis. He used the elements of this discipline to prove his theorem but he delved into the field of combinatorial analysis considerably further discovering in particular the remarkable sequence of numbers which now bear his name. These numbers are encountered continually in scientific investigations right down to our time.
We all feel that one of the basic requirements of mathematics that is evident at present is the investigation of very complex systems. And this complexity on the one hand is very closely related to randomness and on the other – it necessitates in some measure an extension of combinatorial analysis itself. All this gives hope that as time passes the Bernoulli Society will increase its influence more and more in the mathematical world. I wish the participants of the Congress all of the very best.”
From: Theory Probab. Appl., Vol. 32, No.2, p. 200, translated from Russian Journal by Bernard Seckler
