July 28, 2021

Invited paper at Conference in Honour of Fred Smith and Chris Skinner

A conference in memory of Fred Smith and Chris Skinner was held through the University of Southampton, 7-9 July.

Fred and Chris made many significant and fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of sample survey design and analysis.

They were great supporters of the Centre for Sample Survey Methodology (CSSM) in NIASRA, through hosting many visits my CSSM staff. Chris was able to visit us and spend several weeks at Wollongong in 2017 funded by a Vice-Chancellor’s International Scholar’s award. We have benefited from many insightful and helpful discussion with Fred and Chis over many years. They were central to the vibrant statistical community at Southampton University, and everyone who knew them is fortunate count them as colleagues and friends.

Two members of CSSM gave invited presentations at the conference:

• David Steel, University of Wollongong and Robert Clark, Australian National University
  ”Sample design for analysis using high influence probability sampling“
• Ray Chambers, University of Wollongong, Setareh Ranjbar, University of Lausanne, Nicola Salvati and Barbara Pacini, University of Pisa
  "Weighting, informativeness and causal inference, with an application to rainfall enhancement"