A CONVERSATION WITH GANI,JOE

Joe Gani was born in Cairo, Egypt, on 15 December 1924 and attended sc hools in Cairo and in Kobe, Japan. He commenced tertiary studies durin g World War II at the British Institute, Cairo, and continued in Octob er 1945 at Imperial College, London, from which he graduated with a B. Sc. in 1947 and D.I.C. in 1948. He obtained his Ph.D. at the Australia n National University in 1955. His employment experience has been vari ed and international. He began as a science teacher in Cairo, 1942-194 5. Next he was Demonstrator in Applied Mathematics, Imperial College, 1947-1948; Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, University of Melbourne, 1 948-1950; and Lecturer in Mathematics, Birkbeck College, London, 1951. He then returned to Australia and was a schoolteacher in the Victoria n Education Department, 1952-1953; and Lecturer, 1953-1957, Senior Lec turer, 1957-1959, and Reader 1959-1960 in Mathematical Statistics, Uni versity of Western Australia and Senior Fellow in Statistics, Australi an National University, 1961-1964. From there he went as Professor to the Department of Statistics, Michigan State University, 1964-1965, an d thence to the United Kingdom where be became the first Professor of Probability and Statistics, University of Sheffield, 1965-1974, and la ter Director of the Manchester-Sheffield School of Probability and Sta tistics, 1967-1974. He returned again to Australia in 1974 and was Chi ef of the CSIRO Division of Mathematics and Statistics from 1974-1981. Subsequently, he was Professor and Chairman, Department of Statistics , University of Kentucky, 1981-1985, and Professor and Chairman, Stati stics and Applied Probability Program (subsequently Department of Stat istics and Applied Probability), University of California, Santa Barba ra, 1985-1994. Currently he is a Visiting Fellow in the Stochastic Ana lysis Program, School of Mathematical Sciences, Australian National Un iversity. He founded the Journal of Applied Probability, Advances in A pplied Probability, Mathematical Spectrum and The Mathematical Scienti st, and he created the Applied Probability Trust to publish these. His distinguished career has been recognized by his election to Fellowshi p of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 1966, the Internation al Statistical Institute in 1968 and the Australian Academy of Science in 1976. He was made an Honorary Life Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1982 and an Honorary Life Member of the Statistical Societ y of Australia in 1983, and he was awarded the Pitman Medal of the Sta tistical Society of Australia in 1994.