Skip to main content

West Honored With Inaugural Award of International Bayesian Society

Mike West, the Arts & Sciences Professor of Statistics and Decision Sciences and a distinguished professor in the Department of Statistical Science, was the inaugural recipient of the ISBA Zellner Medal from the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA).

Named for the founding president of the society, the medal will be awarded once every two years to statisticians in recognition of their  "outstanding service to Bayesian statistics and the society."

West, who was one of the founders as well as a past president of the society, was cited for a "scientific life spent always at the top, and a vision of the future which became reality, from the work to establish ISBA as a society to its construction on sound bases."

The 2014 inaugural award was a double-hit for Duke, as ISBA conferred a second inaugural Zellner Medals to Duke PhD alum Fabrizio Ruggeri (Statistical Science PhD 1994), currently the research director of CNR-IMATI in Milan, Italy, and IMS member.  His citation noted "His outstanding service to ISBA and ISBA local chapters around the world and his fundamental contributions in theory, methodology and novel applications of Bayesian philosophy."