Professor David Vere-Jones passed away on 31 October 2024. He was a pioneer in the theory and application of statistical seismology, especially in the integration of stochastic point processes with traditional descriptive statistical seismology, and made a significant contribution to the formation of our research group, having been always encouragement to our research. He also wrote a groundbreaking book on point processes, and played an important role in the global community of statistical seismology. We express our deepest condolences here.