David Brooks of Seattle Pacific University, Florence Forbes of INRIA in France, Ian Painter of Talaria Corp., Nathalie Peyrard of Universite J. Fourier in France, Peter Smith of Victoria University, and Erik Van Zwet of University of Utrecht.

Jon Wakefield of Imperial College has accepted the Associate Professor of Statistics and Biostatistics position at UW. He will start working here in September.

The National Research Center for Statistics and the Environment (NRCSE) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be sponsoring a workshop on Quality Assurance of Environmental Models at the University of Washington, Sept 7 - 10, 1999.

Detailed information on the agenda, the principal invited speakers, and instructions for applying to participate in the workshop (limited to approximately 80 people) are posted on the website of the NRCSE at www.nrcse.washington.edu/events/qaem.asp.

The Second International Conference on High-Dimensional Probability will be held at the University of Washington from August 1 to 7, 1999. The organizing committee consists of Evarist Giné, David Mason, Michel Talagrand, and Jon Wellner. Those wishing to attend should see the information about the meeting on the web at:

http//www.stat.washington.edu/hdp99/hdp.html

There may be funds available to subsidize the participation of students.

Cliff Lunneborg

6/1 - 8/30, Univ. of Queensland & Queensland Univ. of Tech., Brisbane

9/1 - 11/30, MacQuarrie Univ., Sydney & Univ. of Sydney

12/1 - 2/15/00, Univ. of Western Australia & Murdoch Univ., Perth

Kent Kalnasy

6/28 - 7/13, vacation

Adrian Raftery

6/18 - 7/13, vacation

Werner Stuetzle

6/26 - 7/3, Ann Arbor, Mich.

David Madigan has been elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. This honor recognizes statisticians of established reputation for outstanding contributions to the profession. It will be conferred officially at the Joint Statistical Meetings in Baltimore in August.

David Madigan is taking a position at AT&T Labs and has moved to Florham Park, New Jersey.

Joel Reynolds is taking a position as Biometrician for the Genetics Conservation Laboratory of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, Division of Commercial Fisheries and has moved to Anchorage, Alaska.

Judy Zeh elected IWC Scientific Committee Chair:
Judith E. Zeh, Research Associate Professor of Statistics, has just been elected Chair of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) Scientific Committee for a three-year term. The IWC Scientific Committee consists of about 140 scientists named by the 40 member governments for their scientific expertise relevant to whales; it's Chair is the Commission's principal scientific advisor. In the IWC's 52-year history, this is the first time that this key position has been held by a women, or by a member of a Statistics department. This election is a major recognition for the Statistics profession and for the UW, as well as for Judy herself.

Congratulations to Hongzhe Li:
A paper based on work in Hongzhe Li's Ph.D thesis: Li, H., Thompson E.A., and Wijsman E.M. (1998) "Semiparametric estimation of major gene effects for age of onset", has been chosen to receive the "Best Paper of the Year" award by the International Genetic Epidemiology Society publications committee.

Exams:
Barnali Das passed her General Exam on 5/27.
Flori Bunea passed her General Exam on 6/11.
Jake Wegelin passed his General Exam on 6/23.

The University of Washington will be closed on Monday, July 5th for Independence Day.