Keywords: Parallel Coordinates, Splines, Unimodal, Massive Data Sets
In this talk, we discuss aspects of Ed's work and influence in the statistical profession. His theoretical work spanned density estimation, splines, and time series. His visualization work ranged from parallel coordinates to immersive technologies. His early recognition of the influence of computing encouraged work in parallel computing, public health, massive data set analyses, as well as network and streaming data analyses. His professional and editorial service ranged from the Committee on Applied and Theoretical Statistics at the National Academies, shepherding this very conference and the IFNA organization, editor of JASA, member of numerous editorial boards, and founder of Wiley's WIRES Computational Statistics review journal. During his 18 years at the Office for Naval Research, Ed exerted a strong influence that allowed rapid development of statistical computing research as well as theoretical work ranging from signal processing to density estimation. The 44 students who worked with Ed at George Mason hold important positions across the federal and military landscape, as well as Hopkin’s Professor Priebe.
It is a pleasure to focus on a small portion of his work as we honor Ed on the occasion of his upcoming retirement. His career reminds us of Tukey's observation that one of the joys of a statistical career is getting to play in others' backyards.