Willem van Zwet’s contributions to the profession

Abstract

Bill van Zwet’s contributions to his profession are, in their own way, comparable to his very substantial research, research supervision and teaching contributions. He had several leadership roles in professional societies, edited leading theoretical journals, started up or revived important conference series, founded a research center and played a huge role in providing colleagues in Central and Eastern Europe access to the western world of probability and statistics. And to each of these several activities, he brought farsightedness, energy and wit, qualities that shone through when he was interviewed about what he’d done (Statist. Sci. 24 (2009) 87–115). In fact, because Bill provided a wealth of detail in “the interview,” this article focuses more on the recollections of some of the people with whom he interacted.