Statistician elected to NAS

University statistician Grace Wahba was elected today, May 2, to the National Academy of Sciences.

Election to the academy is among the most coveted and prestigious honors in all of science, outshining all other forms of professional recognition save the Nobel Prize. Wahba and 59 other scientists and social scientists from around the country were elected today.

Wahba is the John Bascom Professor of Statistics. She joined the UW–Madison faculty in 1967. She is known internationally for the development of statistical methods that help scientists in fields as diverse as atmospheric science and medicine tease useful information from intricate and complicated sets of data.

An important contribution made by Wahba and her colleagues was the refinementof a standard statistical technique known as cross validation. The technique permits the fine tuning of data sets to hone and simplify their predictive power. The method she helped develop, known as the cross-validated spline method, is widely applied in science and is used, for example, to extract more information from such things as CAT scans as well as atmospheric and geologic data collected by satellites.

Wahba joins 50 other current or emeritus members of the UW–Madison faculty who have been honored with election to NAS. She was elected this morning at the 137th annual meeting of the academy. There are currently 1,843 active members of NAS.

The National Academy of Science is a private organization of scientists and engineers dedicated to the furtherance of science and its use for the general welfare. Established in 1863 by an act of Congress, NAS is charged with advising the federal government, upon request, in any matter of science or technology.