I had a great time during this short visit in the Department of Statistics, University of Florida, Gainesville. First, it was a major honour to be the 2014 recipient of the George H. Challis Award and I considerably enjoyed delivering my lectures on mixtures and on ABC with random forests, And chatting with members of the audience about the contents afterwards. Here is the physical award I brought back to my office:
More as a piece of trivia, here is the amount of information about the George H. Challis Award I found on the UF website:
This fund was established in 2000 by Jack M. and Linda Challis Gill and the Gill Foundation of Texas, in memory of Linda’s father, to support faculty and student conference travel awards and the George Challis Biostatistics Lecture Series. George H. Challis was born on December 8, 1911 and was raised in Italy and Indiana. He was the first cousin of Indiana composer Cole Porter. George earned a degree in 1933 from the School of Business at Indiana University in Bloomington. George passed away on May 6, 2000. His wife, Madeline, passed away on December 14, 2009.
Cole Porter, indeed!
On top of this lecturing activity, I had a full academic agenda, discussing with most faculty members and PhD students of the Department, on our respective research themes over the two days I was there and it felt like there was not enough time! And then, during the few remaining hours where I did not try to stay on French time (!), I had a great time with my friends Jim and Maria in Gainesville, tasting a fantastic local IPA beer from Cigar City Brewery and several great (non-local) red wines… Adding to that a pile of new books, a smooth trip both ways, and a chance encounter with Alicia in Atlanta airport, it was a brilliant extended weekend!
Xi'an's Og 