Home » Member News, Obituaries, People News

Obituaries for May 2015

1 May 2015 601 views No Comment

Shirrell de Leeuw Buhler

Sebbie Buhler

Shirrell deLeeuw Buhler

Shirrell deLeeuw Buhler

Shirrell Buhler, founding partner of the P-STAT statistical software program, died February 26, 2015, at her home in Hopewell, New Jersey.

She was a graduate of Oberlin College, where she met her husband and business partner, Roald Buhler. After raising four children, her academic career began in 1966 as a research assistant at the Princeton University Office of Population Research under the direction of Charles Westoff. In 1969, she joined the staff of the Princeton University Computer Center, where she managed technical support and training. In 1979, the Buhlers transitioned from academia to commercial software development, incorporated as P-STAT, Inc. Shirrell was the primary author of the P-STAT manuals and training documentation.

Shirrell loved her work, programming P-STAT for more than 50 years with her husband. They were a dynamic duo, working together and challenging each other to write better FORTRAN code. They traveled the world presenting papers, participating in government/academic/commercial projects, and training the next few generations of analytic researchers.

Shirrell was a member of the American Statistical Association for decades. One colleague wrote, “She had a keen sense of how numerical analysis develops meaning vs. the mechanics of computing.”

Shirrell loved life and enjoyed it to the fullest—reading, programming, going to Jazzercise, working Sudoku puzzles, having Friday night dinners with friends, and (most especially) keeping in touch with her family.

Roald Buhler

Sebbie Buhler

Roald Buhler

Roald Buhler

Roald Buhler, primary developer of the P-STAT statistical software program, died November 17, 2013, in Princeton, New Jersey.

He was a graduate of Oberlin College, where he majored in music and minored in pinball and bridge. He started graduate work at Rutgers the year they acquired an IBM 650 computer—the “cat’s meow” of the day. For Roald, computer programming led not to a degree, but to a profession he loved—a profession in which he would be paid to play.

In 1960, the Educational Testing Service hired Roald to work on the RCA 501. He soon began consulting for Princeton professor Harold Gulickson, who needed his data analyzed but viewed computers with awe. In 1961, there were no computer application programs. If you wanted computer output, you wrote the instructions yourself or you paid someone to write them for you in assembler/machine language. Eventually, Princeton decided it would be cheaper to offer Roald a job. He jumped at the chance without even asking what his salary might be.

Roald’s tenure (1963–1979) at Princeton University was during a period of enormous expansion in computing. As computer center director (1966–1970), he was responsible for both the choice of the first real “main frame” computer and the construction of the computer center. The job was a fascinating experience, but entailed countless meetings and left little free time for the real fun of writing programs, playing tennis, or watching the Princeton basketball and football teams.

Princeton’s resources were abundant. John Tukey was a strong influence, and many of his algorithms were included in what was developing into the program of statistical routines, eventually named P-STAT. These routines were the easy part. The real work came in preparing real-life data such as medical records or survey responses, which were keypunched onto cards or tape. Data cleaning, manipulation, and portability are where Roald’s programs excelled. P-STAT was his life’s work.

Roald’s life was not just a working life. The brain that was so brilliant with computer code was also the brain of a musician, a poet with an extraordinary sense of humor, and a wordsmith with a zest for life. He was a gentleman, a scholar, an athlete, a good father, and a wonderful husband. We will miss him.

In the Buhlers’ memory, you may send contributions in Roald and Shirrell de Leeuw Buhler’s names to WWFM – The Classical Network, 1200 Old Trenton Road, West Windsor, NJ 08550.

Peter W. M. John

Peter W. M. John passed away January 22, 2015, at his home in Austin, Texas. He was a longtime professor at The University of Texas who will be remembered for his contributions to design of experiments, with applications in a variety of fields.

John was a Fellow of the ASA and Institute of Mathematical Statistics. He also was awarded the Shewell Prize of the American Society for Quality Control. In 1995, he received the Don Owen Award from the ASA San Antonio Chapter, and in 2003, he was the honoree and keynote speaker at the Quality and Productivity Research Conference.

While at The University of Texas, John developed a reputation as an excellent teacher. His courses were sprinkled with fascinating anecdotes about the development of the topics he taught (as well as their developers). He supervised 11 PhD students at Texas (as well as one at the University of California at Davis) and more than 40 master’s students. In 1999, he received The University of Texas’ Award for Outstanding Teaching in the Graduate School.

Read more about John’s life at the University of Texas website.

Janet Norwood

Janet L. Norwood, who served 13 years as U.S. Commissioner of Labor Statistics from May 1979 to December 1991, died March 27, 2015, in Austin, Texas. Norwood served three presidents—Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush—as the agency’s leader. She rose to top of the agency after joining it in the early 1960s and retired from government service in 1991 after developing a reputation for “integrity, professionalism, and impartiality.” Perhaps Norwood’s most important contribution at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was the assertion of the agency’s independence from both political interference and the rest of the Labor Department on all scientific matters, personnel decisions, and scientific content of all BLS releases, notes her bio. While she was leading the BLS, Norwood also served as the 84th ASA president in 1989.

A tribute to Norwood will appear in the June issue of Amstat News.

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (No Ratings Yet)
Loading...

Comments are closed.