Samuel Greenhouse was born on January 13, 1918, in the Bronx (New York). He received a B.S. degree in mathematics from the City College of New York in 1938, an M.A. degree from George Washington University in 1954 and a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from George Washington University in 1959. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and an elected Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. He is also an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology and a Fellow of the Council of Epidemiology, American Heart Association. He is a past President of the Eastern North American Region of the Biometric Society and served on the Council of the International Biometric Society. He has served as President of the Washington Statistical Society, as Chairman of Section U (Statistics) of the AAAS and as a member of the AAAS Council Executive Committee. He has been an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Statistical Association, and has served on the Board of Directors of the Society for Clinical Trials. His tenure at the National Institutes of Health included the years 1948-1974, where he began as a mathematical statistician at the National Cancer Institute. He served next as Chief of the Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Section in the Biometry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (1954-1966), with an interlude as Visiting Professor of Statistics at Stanford University. He joined the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in 1966 as the Chief of the Epidemiology and Biometry Branch. He wore two hats at NICHD, as Associate Director for Epidemiology and Biometry and as Acting Associate Director for Program Planning and Evaluation at the time of his retirement from NIH in 1974. Since leaving the NIH, he has been Professor of Statistics at George Washington University, serving as Head of the Department of Statistics 1976-1979 and 1986. During this time he was also Visiting Professor of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health. He is currently Associate Director for Research Development at the Biostatistics Center of George Washington University, and Professor Emeritus, George Washington University.

Nathan Mantel was born on February 16, 1919, in New York City. He received a B.S. degree in statistics from the City College of New York in 1939 and an M.A. degree from American University in 1956. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, has been elected Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) and was recently made an Honorary Fellow of the RSS. He is also an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has been President of the Eastern North American Region of the Biometric Society and a member of the Council of the International Biometric Society. He has served on the editorial boards of Risk Analysis, Biometrics, Journal of the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Research. His tenure at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) included the years 1947-1974. This time was spent entirely as a mathematical statistician at the National Cancer Institute. While at NIH, he also held the position of Adjunct Professor of Biostatistics, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh. He was a recipient of the Superior Service Award, one of the highest civilian awards given by NIH. Since leaving NIH, he has been a Research Professor of Statistics at George Washington University and currently holds the title of Research Professor of Statistics at American University. Concurrently, from 1984 through 1990, he was Visiting Professor, Neuroepidemiology, at Temple University School of Medicine.

Marvin A. Schneiderman was born on December 25, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York. He received a B.S. degree in mathematics and statistics from the City College of New York in 1939, an M.S. degree in statistics from American University in 1953 and a Ph.D. in statistics from American University in 1961. Additional graduate training and research was done at Ohio State University, Harvard Graduate School of Business and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is also an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, an elected Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and a Founding Member of the American Society of Preventive Oncology. He has served as President of the Washington Statistical Society, as Chairman of the Committee on Presidents of Statistical Societies, as a member of the Board of Directors of the American Statistical Association and as a Council member of the International Biometric Society. He has been an editor on the editorial advisory boards of several journals, including Cancer Research, Statistics in Medicine, Blood, Journal of the National Cancer Institute and the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. He was at the National Cancer Institute from 1948 through 1980. He began as a consulting statistician, then was appointed Head of the Controlled Trials Group for Cancer Chemotherapy and later became Associate Director for Field Studies and Statistics. His last appointment at NIH was as NCI Associate Director for Science Policy. He was awarded two of the highest honors accorded civilian employees at the NIH, the Distinguished Service Award and the Superior Service Award. After leaving the National Institutes of Health, he spent a short time with a private consulting firm with strong environmental interests. He then served as a fellow at the Environmental Law Institute before joining the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology. He officially retired in 1995. Marvin Schneiderman passed away on April 1, 1997.

Morton Kramer was born on March 21, 1914, in Baltimore, Maryland. He received an A.B. degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1934 and a D.Sc. in 1939. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, an Honorary Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and an elected member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He is the recipient of the Health-For-All Medal of the World Health Organization and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Johns Hopkins University. During his tenure at NIH from 1949 through 1975, he served as Chief of the Biometrics Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health. He was awarded both the Department of Health, Education and Welfare Superior Service and Distinguished Service awards. Since leaving NIH, he was Professor of Biostatistics at the School of Hygiene and Public Health at Johns Hopkins University and in 1984 became Professor Emeritus.

William M. Haenszel was born on June 19, 1910, in Rochester, New York. He received a B.A. degree in 1931 and an M.A. degree in 1932, both from the University of Buffalo. He is an elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association, the American Public Health Association and the American Association For the Advancement of Science. He has been awarded a Doctor Honoris Causa en Salud Publica from the Universidad del Valle in Colombia. He has held positions as Secretary of the Statistics Section and member of the governing Council of the American Public Health Association, Chair of the Biometrics Section of the American Statistical Association and member of the Regional Advisory Board of the Eastern North Atlantic Region of the International Biometric Society. During his tenure at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1952 through 1976, he served as Head of the Biometric Section and the Chief of the Biometry Branch at the National Cancer Institute. Since leaving the National Institutes of Health he was on staff at the Illinois Cancer Council, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Illinois (he is currently Professor Emeritus) and a consultant to the World Health Organization.

Tavia Gordon was born on December 14, 1917, in Chicago, Illinois. He received a B.A. degree in anthropology from the University of California in 1938. He did graduate work in anthropology at the University of Chicago in 1938-1939, in mathematics at the University of Southern California in 1947-1948, and in mathematical statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1948-1950. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association and the Council on Epidemiology, American Heart Association. His tenure at NIH included the years 1954-1960 and 1966-1977, beginning as an Analytical Statistician with the Biometrics Research Section of the National Heart Institute. He spent the next two years at the Biometry Branch at the National Cancer Institute. His last 10 years at NIH were spent at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. During this period he was heavily involved in the development of the design and analysis of the first long-term, large-scale community-based follow-up study in the United States, the Framingham Study. He was awarded the NIH Director's Award in 1977. Since leaving the National Institutes of Health, he has been a consulting statistician, a senior scientist for General Electric Corporation and, since 1981, a Research Professor at George Washington University Biostatistics Center.

John Christian Bailar III was born on October 9, 1932, in Urbana, Illinois. He received his B.A. degree from the University of Colorado in 1953, an M.D. from Yale University in 1955 and a Ph.D. in statistics from American University in 1973. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, an elected member of the International Statistical Institute, a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an elected member of the Collegium Ramazzini and a MacArthur Fellow (1990-1995). He was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and has been on the Editorial Board of Cancer Research. He has served as Statistical Consultant for the New England Journal of Medicine and is currently a member of its Editorial Board. He has served as Chair of the Biometrics Section of the American Statistical Association, was Founding Chair of the Boston Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis and was President of the Council of Biology Editors. His tenure at NIH included the years 1956-1970 and 1972-1980 on staff at the National Cancer Institute, with a stint at the Veterans Administration from 1970-1972. He began as a Field Investigator in the Biometry Branch, was appointed Head of the Demography Section and then Director of the Third National Cancer Survey. His last appointment at NCI was Deputy Associate Director for Cancer Control. He was awarded the Commendation Medal from the United States Public Health Service for his work on breast cancer screening. Since leaving NIH, he was a Senior Scientist at the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services, a Lecturer in Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health, on staff at the Health Effects Institute and Professor and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McGill University Faculty of Medicine. Since 1995, he has been Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Studies at the University of Chicago.

Fred Ederer was born on March 5, 1926, in Vienna, Austria. He received a B.S. degree in mathematics and science from the City College of New York, an M.A. degree in statistics from American University and did further graduate work in biostatistics at Columbia and Stanford Universities. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, of the American College of Epidemiology and of the American Heart Association's Council on Epidemiology. He has been on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Ophthalmology, Survey of Ophthalmology and the American Journal of Epidemiology. He has served on the Council on Epidemiology, the American Heart Association and the Regional Advisory Board of the Eastern North American Region of the Biometric Society, and he was on the Founding Board of Directors for both the Society for Clinical Trials and the American College of Epidemiology. His tenure at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) included the years 1957 through 1986. He began at the National Cancer Institute, moving next to the National Heart Institute and then spending the next half of his NIH career at the National Eye Institute (NEI). His first position at NEI was as Head of the Section on Clinical Trials, then Chief of the Office of Biometry and Epidemiology and, finally, Associate Director for Biometry and Epidemiology. He was awarded the Superior Service Award, one of the highest civilian awards given at NIH. Since leaving NIH, he has been Senior Epidemiologist at the EMMES Corporation and Adjunct Professor in the Division of Biostatistics at the University of Minnesota.