In 1974, the Societal Institute of the Mathematical Sciences (SIMS) initiated a series of five-day Research Application Conferences (RAC's) at Alta, Utah, for the purpose of probing in depth societal fields in light
of their receptivity to mathematical and statistical analysis. The first eleven conferences addressed ecosystems, epidemiology, energy, environmental health, time series and ecological processes, energy and health, energy
conversion and fluid mechanics, environmental epidemiology: risk assessment, atomic bomb survival data: utilization and analysis, modem statistical methods in chronic disease epidemiology and scientific issues in quantitative
cancer risk assess­ ment. These Proceedings are a result of the twelfth conference on Statistical Methodology for Study of the AIDS Epidemic which was held in 1991 at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, Berkeley,
California. For five days, 45 speakers and observers contributed their expertise in the relevant biology and statistics. The presentations were timely and the discussion was both enlightening and at times spirited. Members of
the Program Committee for the Conference were Klaus Dietz (University of Tiibingen, Germany), Vernon T. Farewell (University of Waterloo, Ontario), and Nicholas P. Jewell (University of California, Berke­ ley) (Chair). The
Conference was supported by a grant to SIMS from the National Institute of Drug Abuse. D. L. Thomsen, Jr.