Pictures from the Party

Pictures from the party

Reflections by Ayala Cohen

I am writing this essay after my retirement party that took place on Nov 5'th at the Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management. The party was initiated by my colleague and close friend Miriam (Mia) Erez. Other close friends and colleagues, mainly Ishay Weissman, devoted much time and thoughts in organizing the event that was undoubtedly much beyond everybody's expectations. Inbal and Guy Shani designed the beautiful invitation for the party, that I displayed in the BLOG. I am grateful to all my friends and ex-students all around the world, who contributed to this successful event. A big surprise that was revealed to me during the party was the creation of this BLOG by my ex-student Galit Shmueli. Modern internet communication enabled Galit to carry out this operation from far away, while spending her sabbatical at the kingdom of Bhutan amid the eastern end of the Himalaya mountains. At the party, I missed her presence as I did other dear friends who could not come. Thanks to this BLOG, I received warm and overwhelming greetings from those who could not come and also from friends who took part in the party.

The transition from the status of a regular faculty member to a "retired person" was not easy for me, (I joined this faculty in 1969). The warm expressions I received during the party as well as those written in this BLOG were very helpful in making this transition smoother. I am more than glad that I am still able to enjoy my professional activities by serving as the head of the statistics laboratory and teaching at the Technion. Doing applied statistics and teaching were always the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects in my career.

As a pupil in high school (1954-1957), I did not think of pursuing an academic career and I did not know about statistics. Statistics was not taught in high school. In those years few women had any professional career, and those who worked out of home were mostly teachers or secretaries. After serving two years in the army (1957-1959), I started studying in the Hebrew University with the intention of becoming a high school teacher. I majored in mathematics and physics because these were subjects which I loved. Part of the B.Sc. requirements was to take courses in subjects other than the two majors. Therefore, I took few statistics courses, as did some other students whose majors were mathematics and physics. The general attitude we had was that statistics is trivial, and it is not a "real" science. We mainly enjoyed the probability and statistical theory, but we did not appreciate the beauty and difficulty in data analysis.

The person who had a major influence in making a change in my future career was Elisha. He encouraged me on the basis of my exceptionally high B.Sc. grades, to consider an alternative career to that of a high school teacher. I did not rule out the possibility of working as a statistician in the Central Bureau of Statistics in Jerusalem, and after getting a positive response from them I was planning to work there.
These plans changed since we became parents and Elisha was accepted for Ph.D. studies in physics at the Johns Hopkins University, (JHU). I was hoping that I could work in the US in order to supplement the monthly fellowship which Elisha was granted by JHU as a graduate student. This was a $200/month fellowship which was certainly not sufficient for a family of three, (Ari was then one and a half year old). I feel always grateful to the late professor Ruben Gabriel who was then a statistics professor at the Hebrew University. He strongly recommended that I will take the opportunity of being at Johns Hopkins and will enroll in their statistics program as a Ph.D. student. Professor Gabriel was aware of my final B.Sc. statistics oral exam which was 10 on the scale of 1-10. In spite of my B.Sc. high grades, I still lacked self confidence and was afraid I would not succeed in getting a Ph.D. degree. I started my studies at JHU thinking that it was a way of increasing our family monthly income (from $200 to $400), and helping Elisha through his graduate studies. My mathematical knowledge which I acquired in the B.Sc. program in Jerusalem was very helpful and after three years of intensive work I obtained the Ph.D. degree. It was during these years that I became familiar with applied statistics. I then realized that I preferred working in this direction rather than on the theory of probability and statistics.

The next station in my professional road was at Bell Laboratories (BL) at Murray Hill. As with my Ph.D. studies, this choice was made by Elisha's professional preference. Also, as with my Ph.D. studies, Elisha’s choice of BL turned out to be the best place for me to work in. The statistics departments BL in those days were blessed with researchers who were most influential in developing the area of Exploratory Data Analysis, (EDA). These were John Tukey, Colin Mallows, Ram Gnanadesikan, Jon Kettenring, John Chambers, as well as prominent statisticians who came as visitors to Bell Laboratories. Topics such as Fast Fourier Transform, Q-Q plots, Robust statistics, Clustering were developed and some of these methodologies were applied to real data in order to solve interesting problems which had practical implications on decision makers in AT &T. At those days the grounds were laid to develop S-Plus following the major changes in the availability of high speed computers.
I feel fortunate that I could spend enriching and rewarding years at BL. Not surprisingly I returned to BL for several summers, sabbatical and a year leave of absence.

During my years at the Technion, whenever I developed a statistical methodology, it always was motivated by a practical problem. My list of publications reflects my preference of being part of a research team and working on a "real problem" for which statistical analysis is essential. The interaction with researchers in various distinct areas enriched my knowledge and introduced me to many interesting people with whom the professional cooperation often developed into a friendship. Evidence of that could be seen in my retirement party : Dr. Bernanda Flickstein described our joint work on air pollution in the Haifa Metropolitan area; Dr. Avner Kessler described our joint work on the effect of operational cloud seeding on the increase of rain; Shaul Kadosh described work at Teva Pharmaceutical R&D group; Dr. Shmuel Rispler, a cardiologist at Rambam Medical Center, not only mentioned my statistical contribution in Cardiology , but also challenged me to solve new statistical problems that the Rambam team of cardiologists will face in a new research project. Finally, Professor Emanuel Tirosh from the Hannah Khoushy Child Development Center, Bnai Zion Medical Center, with whom I have currently 28 publications in medical journals, described some of our research projects, particularly those that helped in improving treatment of children with developmental problems.

I hope that I will be able to continue with my professional activities for many more years to come.