SILVER CELEBRATIONS FOR STATISTICS Lord Mayor of Leeds, Councillor Mohamed Iqbal opened the celebrations at the Leeds Annual Statistical Research Workshop's 25th Anniversary Dinner held at the Royal Armouries. The international event, founded by Professor Mardia, has interdisciplinary exchange of knowledge at its core and has played a major role in generating awareness of future global research issues that interface with statistics for example medical imaging, shape analysis and, latterly, statistical bioinformatics - a contemporary subject that the Department of Statistics is to launch as a new taught Masters next year. The three-day workshop was officially opened by the Vice Chancellor, Michael Arthur who stated: "LASR Workshops provide a very good example of interdisciplinary research attracting the very best minds from all over the world. I am pleased to open the LASR Workshop of this year which celebrates its 25th Anniversary." The dinner was sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline who have collaborated with LASR on a variety of projects for over five years and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Pictured are (left to right) Mrs Pavan Mardia, Dr Stuart Barber, Lord Mayor Cllr. Mohamed Iqbal, Professor Kanti Mardia and Professor Stan Wainer, Head of the School of Mathematics (Image © K.V. Mardia). Pictured are (left to right): Dr Clive Bowman, GlaxoSmithKline; Vice-Chancellor Michael Arthur; Professor Brian Athey, University of Michigan; and Professor Kanti Mardia (Image © K.V. Mardia).