• Wide-ranging research

  Statistician receives national award for cross-disciplinary research.

  
  
• Max Morris can't pinpoint the exact research that prompted the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, which is funded by the National Science Foundation, to award him the Jerome Sacks Award in Cross-Disciplinary Research.
  
  Instead, the professor of statistics, who has a dual appointment in the College of Engineering's Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering, likes to think that he was recognized for his wide range of research interests.
  
  "I'm pretty sure the award was given for a series of things I have done over the past 25 years," Morris said. "Everything from work in the health care and transportation fields to engineering even a couple of projects I have collaborated with individuals in economics.
  
  "I think I was selected for the breadth of what I have accomplished."
  
  Those accomplishments are extensive in a career that has encompassed positions at the University of Texas Health Science Center, Mississippi State University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory before he came to Iowa State five years ago.
  
  Some of the projects he has provided statistical analysis for include:
 

*Studying the cardiac risk in the chemistry of drinking water;

* Developing the statistical model of the human bone marrow system. This Department of Defense funded study looked quantifying risk of adverse health risks or death when individuals are exposed to iodinizing radiation.

* Working with nuclear engineers at Oak Ridge to look at the bizarre chemistry that occurs when a reactor melts down.

"I like working with large scale computation models and getting involved with scientists who are working
with complex models," Morris said. "One of the things that appeals to these scientists is that you (the statistician) brings something to the table they can't do.

"What they do for me is offer me a chance to learn about a whole new range of subjects. The learning just keeps on going."

That learning has continued with one of Morris' current projects. Along with colleagues in the Ames Laboratory , Morris is working on a project funded by the FBI to develop a statistical analysis of tools. Morris cites an example of a burglar using a screwdriver to pry open a window. Later the police find a screwdriver at the home of the suspect.

"If that screwdriver was used in a commission of a crime, the FBI would like to know how sure we are that that screwdriver made a specific mark on the window that was pried open," he said. "How much are the markings alike."

Currently these tool marks are identified by personnel called tool mark examiners. But the FBI would like to develop an image processing system that would be based on an algorithm created by Morris and his colleagues that could compute an index of such marks.

It's this type of research that impressed the committee making the selection of the just the Jerome Sacks Award by the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, an honor that is special to Morris.

"Jerry Sacks has been a long-time collaborator of mine. It's fun that I received this award named after him because we've collaborated on work on this nature for a long time," said Morris, who was quick to point out that Sacks was not involved in the selection process.

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