Medals and prizes jointly awarded by the RSS : The David Cox Medal The David G Kendall Award



The David Cox Medal for Statistics 

Nominations for the inaugural presentation of the 2025 David Cox Medal for Statistics are now open and will be closing on 31 October 2024. 

The David Cox Medal for Statistics commemorates the pioneering statistical work of Sir David Cox in the fields of statistical theory, methodology and applications.  

Three medals are awarded every three years by the RSS in partnership with the American Statistical Association (ASA), the Bernoulli Society, the International Biometric Society (IBS), the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) and the International Statistical Institute (ISI).  

The awards will be made for the first time in 2025. 

Criteria 
The award will recognise mid-career individuals, with an age limit of 50 (with exceptions made for mitigating circumstances such as career breaks). Awardees’ research will be original, with conceptual depth and novelty, moving the field or a substantive application area forward.  

Candidates for the award will be assessed based on a specified body of work, with a limit of up to five papers. It is not necessary for nominees to be members of any of the partner societies. 

Remit of the Prize Committee  
The Prize Committee consists of one representative from each partner society, the chair of which will rotate between partners on each cycle.  The committee remit is to receive and consider the nominations and to come to an agreement on the medal recipients. 

Members
Tom Belin - ASA 
Peter McCullagh (chair) – Bernoulli Society 
Ruth Keogh - IBS 
Eric B Laber - IMS 
Judy Wang - ISI 
Sylvia Richardson - RSS 

Remit of the Search Committee 
The Search Committee consists of two representatives from each partner society, the chair of which will rotate between partners on each cycle. 

The value of establishing a search committee will be to ensure consistency of calibre of nominations, to ensure the search is wide and deep and that nominations reflect the diversity of the statistical community.   

The Search Committee does not preclude nominations coming from other sources – it is intended as an additional method. 

Members
Andrea Rotnitzky (chair) - ASA 
Richard Davis – Bernoulli Society 
Alan Welsh - IBS 
Tom Louis - IBS 
Jianwen Cair - IMS 
Veronika Rockova - IMS 
Byeong Park - ISI 
Pedro Luis do Nascimento Silva - ISI 
Christl Donnelly - RSS 
Idris Eckley - RSS 

The David G Kendall Award 


In 2020 the Bernoulli Society (BS) and the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) established a joint biennial award aimed at young researchers.

The award is in honor of David G. Kendall, who was the first president of the Bernoulli Society, and was awarded the Guy Medal in Silver (1955) and in Gold (1981) of the RSS. 

The award funds come from donations to the Bernoulli Society or to the Royal Statistical Society (that is a registered UK charity able to receive donations through Gift Aid).

The award consists of the prize amount of 2000€ together with an award certificate. The winner shall deliver the Kendall Lecture during the BS or the RSS major conference held next year. The award should be used to cover the expenses of attendance at this conference.

BS and RSS will publicise the award recipients, including a synopsis of their work.

The eligible candidates are young researchers which:

  • have significant achievements and great potential of their research in Mathematical Statistics and/or Probability Theory;
  • obtained their PhD within 8 years prior to the year of competition (up to a year’s credit will be given for each year taken out due to parental circumstances since receiving the PhD);
  • are members of the BS or the RSS.

The rotation scheme. To give both fields their deserved credit, the award alternates, so every 4 years the award is given to a young researcher in Mathematical Statistics and every 4 years to a young researcher in Probability Theory.  In the years that the award is given for Probability Theory, the winner will be invited to present the Kendall Lecture at the Bernoulli conference; in the years the award is given for Mathematical Statistics, the winner will be invited to present the Kendall Lecture at the RSS conference.

The Award Committee. A committee consisting of two members from each society will consider the nominations and agree on the award recipient.  The members and the chair shall be proposed by the presidents of both societies.

The timeline of the nominations process. The nomination process is open from April 1st and closes on June 30th. The award committee considers nominations and agrees a winner before September 30th. The presidents approve the winner by the end of November. The award recipient shall be announced in December.

The management. The BS leads on administrating the award, including the management of the awarding committee and the payment of the award. Any questions related to the award should be sent to: secretariat@bernoullisociety.org.

The present 2023 Edition of the Award is organized for young researchers in MATHEMATICAL STATISTICS. See the call for nominations

About David G. Kendall. This award honours the memory of David George Kendall (1918-2007). As noted in the history of the Bernoulli Society, Kendall played a key rôle in founding the Bernoulli Society in 1975, and was its initial president; his personal account of this time may be found in the first Bernoulli Journal issue. Kendall was also a committed and distinguished member of the Royal Statistical Society, holding the Guy Medal in Silver (1955) and in Gold (1981), and presenting five read papers over the course of his career. He was always eager to encourage younger colleagues, and particularly to urge them to travel and make contacts and friendships across the scientific world. For this reason we are confident that he would have been delighted to see awards in his name, designed to encourage and to enable young probabilists and statisticians to participate actively in the international meetings which are so important in the life of our subject.

See also a biographical account by Geoffrey Grimmett.