ISI - International Statistical Institute
Newsletter Volume 26, No. 3 (78) 2002

ISI Committee Matters 


The Committee on Women in Statistics (CWS)
Beverley Carlson, Chair
(7 August 2002, Santiago, Chile)

I would like to use this opportunity to draw the attention of statisticians, and particularly women statisticians, to the Committee on Women in Statistics. For more information please consult the CWS website or contact me (bcarlson@eclac.cl) at the U.N. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, Chile. If you have contributions to the website please contact the Committee’s website editor, Nanjamma Chinnappa (nach@blr.vsnl.net.in).

Who are we? 

The ISI Committee on Women in Statistics (CWS) is a committee of the International Statistical Institute (ISI). The committee, which was formally established in name during the ISI Beijing Session in August 1995, held its first meetings during the ISI Session in Istanbul, Turkey, in August 1997. 

Initially, what had motivated the establishing of such a committee was concern among the ISI leadership over low female representation in the ISI and its Sections. The committee's Terms of Reference, which reflect this concern and deal with a number of factors closely related to it, are: 

  1. To promote and strengthen the representation of women statisticians in the ISI and its Sections. 

  2. To help in providing opportunities for women members to assume active and visible roles in the ISI and other statistical associations. 

  3. To collect information on women in the statistical professions in different countries and to facilitate the flow of information among women statisticians. 

  4. To stimulate interest in Statistics among women and encourage women in schools and colleges to study Statistics. 

  5. To support the compilation of statistics on women, with a view to generating relevant studies concerning women's roles in the various activities in their countries.

The Website of the Committee on Women in Statistics

During this biennium the CWS has placed priority on re-designing its website as a means of information-sharing among members of the ISI family and outreach and exchange of views among statisticians globally, specially women in the profession. An important part of this process has been to update and install the CWS website to the ISI main site which has been very successfully done in the last few months by Nanjamma Chinnappa (India), the CWS website editor. We are working to further expand it to make it more interactive with the activities of women statisticians in countries. Work has begun on the next step which will add a Country Correspondents page to the website.

ISI Ad Hoc Committee on Membership Expansion and Renewal 

The CWS is participating in the work of this important Ad hoc committee of the ISI. The Committee, under the leadership of David Moore (USA), is exploring ways to expand ISI membership by attracting members from under-represented groups - younger members, women and members from more countries with little or non-representation. A first report was presented to the Executive Committee of the ISI and the final report has been drafted and is being reviewed.

ISI Membership Drive

Complementary to the work of the Committee on Membership and Renewal, the Committee on Women in Statistics is joining forces with the ISI Sections to identify women candidates to propose for ISI membership. Please draw nominations to the attention of the Section President and/or to the following CWS members:

The Experience of Women Statisticians in Professional Life, ISI, Berlin, 2003

The Invited Paper Meeting proposed by the CWS for the Berlin session of the ISI in August 2003 on The Experience of Women Statisticians in Professional Life has been accepted by the Programme Committee. Beverley Carlson, Chair of the CWS, is the organizer of this meeting (IP 58). Papers are being invited from successful women working in different areas of statistical application. They are asked to reflect on issues that arise in the content of their work as well as the practice of their work. In particular, they are asked to reflect on the evolution of their careers, and their career paths; and especially on successful practices, modes of work, training, networking, professional choices, opportunities, decisions, etc. to which they would attribute their success and to share the positive models they have encountered and 'lessons learned' with others. I have had a very good response and anticipate a lively session. The list of speakers is Carmen Batanero (Spain) and Gabriella Ottavani (Italy) who will speak about women statisticians and the IASE; Sheela Talwalker (USA) who will speak about women statisticians in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries; Saleha Habibullah (Pakistan) who will speak about working in academia; and Soedarti Surbakti (Indonesia) will write from the point of view of a chief statistican working in official statistics. 

Winner of the Jan Tinbergen Prize 2001 
Madhuchhanda Bhattacharjee (India)

The Jan Tinbergen prize is awarded every other year for the best paper in statistics and was established by the ISI for young nationals from developing countries. Madhuchhanda’s prize winning paper at Seoul on Inference for Non-Homogeneous Poisson Processes: Models for Repairable Systems has been placed , together with a profile of the author.

Winner of the Cochran-Hansen Prize 2001 
Kristina Rajaleid (Estonia)

The Cochran-Hansen prize was established by the International Association of Survey Statisticians in 1999 in celebration of its 25th anniversary. It is awarded every other year to the best paper on Survey Research Methods submitted by a young statistician from a developing or transition country. Kristina’s prize winning paper On the Order Sampling Design is viewable on the CWS website, along with a profile of the author.

A CWS Project: A Characterization of Statisticians by Gender in Several Countries

The project is soliciting testing and feedback on its questionnaire This is a long-standing project of the CWS co-ordinated by CWS member, Lelia Boeri de Cervetto (Argentina).

With very best wishes,
Beverly Carlson

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