  The idea of the Lehmann Symposia as platforms to encourage a revival of
interest in fundamental questions in theoretical statistics, while keeping in
focus issues that arise in contemporary interdisciplinary cutting-edge
scientific problems, developed during a conversation that I had with Victor
Perez Abreu during one of my visits to Centro de Investigaci\'{o}n en
Matem\'{a}ticas (CIMAT) in Guanajuato, Mexico. Our goal was and has been to
showcase relevant theoretical work to encourage young researchers and students
to engage in such work. The First Lehmann Symposium on Optimality took place in
May of 2002 at Centro de Investigaci\'{o}n en Matem\'{a}ticas in Guanajuato,
Mexico. A brief account of the Symposium has appeared in Vol. 44 of the
Institute of Mathematical Statistics series of Lecture Notes and Monographs.
The volume also contains several works presented during the First Lehmann
Symposium. All papers were refereed. The program and a picture of the
participants can be found on-line at the website
http://www.stat.rice.edu/lehmann/lst-Lehmann.html.
