PREFIX (Dr, Prof): Professor

NAME: Laurence S. Freedman

YEARS OF PRESIDENCY: 2001-3

               CURRENT POSITION: Director, Biostatistics Unit

          Gertner Institute for Epidemiology and Health Policy Research

          Sheba Medical Center,

          Tel Hashomer 52621, Israel

          Tel. No.: +972-3-5305390 (W); +972-2-6793472 (H)

          Fax: +972-3-5349607

          e-mail: lsf@actcom.co.il

CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS:

Measurement error modeling

Nutritional epidemiology

Cancer epidemiology

Clinical trials methodology

EMR DURING MY PRESIDENCY: In 2000 I spoke with a few Israeli colleagues about the need to set up a region of the International Biometric Society (IBS) in the Middle East, so that biostatisticians in our area could feel connected to the activities of fellow biostatisticians across the world. Four of us, Yoav Benjamini, Ben Reiser, David Zucker and I set about contacting biostatisticians in neighboring countries (Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan) and planning the first conference. It was agreed that the conference would be held in Haifa in early 2001. However some unrest in the country led to our moving the venue to Athens, thanks to Ranny Dafni’s kind and enthusiastic co-operation. David Farragi of Haifa University was the main local organizer of that first conference. One of our main hurdles to getting started was formal recognition of our new Region by the International Biometric Society. In this task we were greatly helped by Geert Molenberghs who was at that time the secretary of IBS. Geert smoothed over various administrative blockages and our path was cleared. At the inaugural conference in Athens, we conducted our first elections. Three of those on the first committee, Refik Burgut, Ranny Dafni and Stergios Tzortzios, went on to become future presidents of EMR, and another, Ori Davidov, went on to become the secretary of IBS.