The Mitchell Prize is awarded in recognition of an outstanding paper that describes how a Bayesian analysis has solved an important applied problem. The Prize is jointly sponsored by the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science (SBSS) of the ASA, the International Society for Bayesian Analysis (ISBA), and the Mitchell Prize Founders’ Committee. The fund was initiated by donations from Toby’s many friends and colleagues at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Duke University, Peter Rossi, Jerome Sacks, Microsoft Research, the Section on Bayesian Statistical Science of the ASA, University of California at Los Angeles and Donald Ylvisaker.
The Mitchell Prize is named after Toby J. Mitchell and was established by his friends and colleagues following his death from leukemia in 1993. Toby was a Senior Research Staff Member at Oak Ridge National Laboratory throughout his career, with leaves of absence spent at the University of Wisconsin and at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Toby won the Snedecor Award in 1978 (with co-author Bruce Turnbull), made incisive contributions to statistics, especially in biometry and engineering applications, and was a marvelous collaborator and an especially thoughtful scientist. Toby was a dedicated Bayesian, hence the focus of the prize.
Congratulations to Devin Francom, a former BYU Department of Statistics student for being awarded this prize.