The committee, which was formally established in name during the ISI Beijing Session in August 1995, held its first meetings during the ISI Session in Istanbul, Turkey, in August 1997.

Initially, what had motivated the establishing of such a committee was concern among the ISI leadership over low female representation in the ISI and its Sections. The committee's Terms of Reference, which reflect this concern and deal with a number of factors closely related to it, are:

1. To promote and strengthen the representation of women statisticians in the ISI and its Sections.

2. To help in providing opportunities for women members to assume active and visible roles in the ISI and other statistical associations.

3. To collect information on women in the statistical professions in different countries and to facilitate the flow of information among women statisticians.

4. To stimulate interest in Statistics among women and encourage women in schools and colleges to study Statistics.

5. To support the compilation of statistics on women, with a view to generating relevant studies concerning women's roles in the various activities in their countries.
   
   

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   Committee Members
   
   

   * Siobhan Carey

   Siobhan Carey (siobhan.carey@cso.ie) is Assistant Director General in the Central Statistics Office, Ireland where she leads the Social and Demographic Statistics programme. Siobhan joined the CSO from the Dept. for International Development in the UK where she was Chief Statistician. Prior to that she worked for 13 years in the Office for National Statistics in the UK in the household survey area. She has worked on many of the large-scale household surveys in the UK with special emphasis on education and health as well as survey methods more generally, in particular on issues of nonresponse reduction. She was Project Director for the EU methodological review of the International Adult Literacy Survey and has a particular interest in issues around comparative survey design.

   * Beverley Carlson

   Ms. Carlson ( carlsonb@un.org ) is Development Statistician with the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Previously, she was senior advisor, UNICEF Headquarters, inter-regional advisor in the UN Statistical Office, and Chief of General Surveys, International Statistical Programmes Center, US Bureau of the Census. She has been an active member of the ISI since 1981 and is the current Chair of this committee and serves on the ISI Ad Hoc Committee on Expansion and Renewal and the Elections Committee. She works with the PARIS21, serving on its Task Teams on Statistical Capacity Building and Advocacy. 

   * Cynthia Z.F. Clark

   Dr. Clark  (cynthia_clark@nass.usda.gov) is the Administrator of USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). Previously she was Director of Methodology at the United Kingdom Office for National Statistics, and prior to that, Associate Director for Methodology and Standards at the U.S. Census Bureau. She has been a member of ISI since 1997.  She became chair of the ISI Committee on Women in Statistics in 2003.  She served as a board member of the International Association for Survey Statisticians from 1999-2003.  She is a member of the Board of the American Statistical Association (2003-2005) and served as president of the Washington Statistical Society (2000-2001).

   * Martha Farrar

   Ms. Farrar (martha.farrar@nass.usda.gov) is Chief of the Data Collection Branch at the National Agricultural Statistics Service of the United States Department of Agriculture.  She is a member of the American Statistical Association and has been a member of ISI since 2000. Martha served on the program committee for the Third International Conference on Agricultural Statistics (ICAS III) and the Organizing Committee for ICAS IV.

   * Denise Silva
   
   Denise Silva (denise.silva@ons.gsi.gov.uk)
   is a principal methodologist at the Office for National Statistics – UK where she is the head of the Small Area Estimation Branch. She previously worked for almost 20 years at the Brazilian Central Statistical Office (IBGE) in the design and analysis of household and business surveys. In addition to her posts in official statistics she has several years of experience as a lecturer, teaching a wide range of statistical courses for undergraduate and postgraduate programmes as well as professional development courses. She is a member of the Brazilian Statistical Association, where she served on the council as the treasurer from 2004 to 2006, and is also a member of the ISI and the IASS. Her main research interests focus on small area estimation, time series analysis, the design and analysis of sample surveys and statistical modelling in the social sciences. She completed her PhD in Statistics at the University of Southampton and has an MSc and a BSc in Statistics.

   * Dennis J. Trewin

   Mr. Trewin (dennistrewin@grapevine.net.au) is an international statistical consultant. Until 2007 he was the Australian Statistician at the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Previously he held Deputy positions at the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Statistics New Zealand. He is Chairman of the General Topics Programme Committee for the 2009 ISI Session. He was previously the President of the ISI, and President of the International Association of the Survey Statisticians. He is also a Past President of the Statistical Society of Australia and was the Inaugural Chair of their Accreditation Committee.

   * Fred Vogel

   Fred Vogel ( fvogel@msn.com) most recently was the Global Manager of the International Comparison Program where he was on the staff of the Development Data Group in the World Bank but also reported to an International Board of Directors. The program included over 100 countries. He is a charter member of the International Association of Survey Statisticians where he has served on the Council. He is also a member of the International Statistical Institute (ISI) and served on the Program Committee for the 2001 Seoul Session. In 1993, he formed the ISI committee on Agricultural Statistics and was it s first chair. He has resumed the position of chair in 2005. He initiated and was program chair of the First International Conference on Agriculture Statistics (ICAS) held in 1998 in Washington, DC. Prior to joining the World Bank, he was the Chair of the Agricultural Statistics Board in the US Department of Agriculture. In that capacity, he had the final responsibility for the scope and content of over 400 statistical reports covering agriculture.

   * Caucus for Women in Statistics (CWIS) representative
   
   The CWIS Executive Committee appoints a past president of CWIS to the CWS for a two year term.
   
   2010 - 2011 CWS representative: Tena Katsaounia
   2008 - 2009 CWS representative: Mary Gray
   
   The CWIS Representative is responsible for writing and sharing articles on women' issues in the statistics profession.