Each year, the Classification Society offers a Distinguished Dissertation Award for an outstanding Ph.D. dissertation on the theme of clustering, classification, or related areas of data analysis, encompassing associated theory and/or applications. The 2016 Award totals US$500 in book vouchers from Chapman and Hall/CRC and the winner will be invited to make a presentation in a special session at the 2016 Classification Society Annual Meeting, which will be held at the University of Missouri from June 1-4. Nominations and external referee reports must be submitted to the chair of the Award Committee, Paul McNicholas, at paulmc ‘at’ mcmaster ‘dot’ ca, on or before February 5, 2016. For more details about the award and nominations consult: http://classification-society.org/clsoc/DDA16.pdf.