A Tribute to Ingram Olkin

Statistic al Scienc e 2007, V ol. 22, No. 3, 400 DOI: 10.1214 /07-STS250 c  Institute of Mathematical Statisti cs , 2007 A T ribute to Ingram Olki n Edw a rd I. Geo rge It is with pleasure and prid e that I in tro d uce this sp ecial section in honor of I ngram Olkin. This tr ib - ute is esp ecially fitting b ecause, among the man y profound and far-reac hing contributions that he has made to our p r ofession, Ingram Olkin was the key force b eh ind the genesis of Statistic al Scienc e . As put so eloqu en tly by Morrie De Gro ot [ 1 ], the found- ing Executiv e Ed itor of Statistic al Scienc e , This j ou r nal exists largel y b ecause of the efforts of one p erson, Professor Ingram Olkin of Stanford Unive rsity . It was he who first realized the imp ortance of a new journal of this t yp e b oth to the field of statistics and probabilit y and to the IMS, and it w as his idea that th e IMS sh ould establish suc h a journ al. He has w orke d tirelessly and creativ ely durin g the p ast few yea rs to b ring it in to existence. Every one wh o shares our b elief in the usefu ln ess of Sta- tistic al Sci enc e , or enjoys some of the arti- cles that we publish , ow es Professor Olkin a debt of gratit ude for h is vision and h is p ersu asiv e talen ts. I know I sp eak f or all the past Executiv e Editors of Statistic al Scienc e wh en I sa y w e are d eeply grate- Edwar d I. Ge or ge is Pr ofessor, Dep artment of Statistics, The Wharton Scho ol, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphi a, Pennsylvania 19104 , USA e-mail: e dge or ge@wharton.up enn.e du . This is an e lectronic reprint of the original ar ticle published by the Institute of Mathematica l Statistics in Statistic al Scienc e , 2007 , V ol. 22, No. 3, 400 . This reprint differ s from the original in pagina tion and t yp ogr aphic detail. ful to Ingram Olkin for his guidance and his man y con tributions to the journ al o v er th e y ears. The four pap ers in this sp ecial section were first present ed as part of a session in honor of Ingram Olkin’s 80th birthday , organized b y Allan Samp- son and Leon Gleser for the 2004 Joint Statistical Meetings in T oron to, Canada. Authored by Ingram Olkin’s o wn students, th ese pap ers con v ey th e far- reac h ing communit y of scholars he h as pro du ced, as w ell as a sense of ju s t some of th e n o w flour ishing areas that his man y seminal contributions ha ve ini- tiated. I am esp ecially grateful to Leon Gleser for his role in getting this s p ecial section under wa y for Statistic al Scienc e , and to Allan Sampson who finally managed to get Ingram Olkin in one place long enough to obtain the long-a waited conv ersa- tion which concludes the section. I am d eligh ted to sa y that it was w ell w orth the wait! REFERENCE [1] De Groo t, M. H. (1986). Editorial. Statist. Sci. 1 1–2. MR0846003 1