The Department of Statistics at the University of Michigan will be hosting a conference titled “From Industrial Statistics to Data Science” on the U-M campus during October 1-3, 2015. This conference will focus on the changing role and nature of statistics in industry and in academic collaborative research. We aim to bring together researchers making fundamental contributions to methodology for complex and large-scale data analysis, researchers with deep ties to industry (including people working in industrial research groups), and researchers with deep ties to emerging applied research in academia involving “big data”. A major goal of the conference is to promote connections between statistics researchers with a primarily methodological focus and researchers with close ties to specic application areas. This will be an especially valuable opportunity for graduate students and new researchers who may not otherwise have the opportunity to see emerging statistical methods considered in an applications-oriented context.

The conference will also serve to recognize the contributions of Professor Vijay Nair to the statistics community in general, and to the Department of Statistics at the University of Michigan in particular, on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Professor Vijay Nair has played a major role in promoting a broad and outward-looking emphasis in statistics research, in developing ties between academic research and industry, and in promoting the internationalization of statistical research and advanced practices. As a long time (former) chair of the U-M Department of Statistics, Professor Nair led the formation of an Informatics concentration for undergraduates, and more recently has been instrumental in the creation of the Michigan Institute for Data Science on the U-M campus. A lasting legacy of his vision and efforts in promoting ties between industrial and academic research dating from his time as a member of the technical staff at Bell Labs is the successful annual Spring Research Conference series in industrial statistics. As current president of the International Statistical Institute, Vijay Nair has played a highly visible role in efforts to build the capacity of statistical expertise worldwide, including in Latin America, Africa, and Asia.