Herman Chernoff, who needs no introduction to statisticians, turned 95 years old in July. To commemorate this event, a day-long symposium was held in his honor at Harvard University April 27. The symposium was co-sponsored by the Boston Chapter, Harvard Statistics Department, and newly formed New England Statistics Society. It was held at Harvard’s Hilles Community Hall and attended by more than 100 people.

Herman Chernoff’s 95th birthday was commemorated with a day-long symposium at Harvard University.

The symposium featured talks by former students, collaborators, and researchers influenced by Chernoff’s work, as well as reflections on him by audience members. This continued during dinner, which lasted well into the night.

Henry Braun, a student of Chernoff’s at Stanford, summarized his career as follows:

Herman’s daughter, Miriam Chernoff of Harvard, who is also chapter vice president, moderated a panel discussion in which Carl Morris of Harvard, Joseph Gastwirth of The George Washington University, Roy Welsch of MIT, and Mark Vangel of Massachusetts General Hospital took part.

Speakers and Special Attendees

Bill DuMouchel, Oracle Health Sciences
Shaw-Hwa Lo, Columbia University
Jay Kadane, Carnegie-Mellon University
Stuart Geman, Brown University
Jake Abernethy, Georgia Institute of Technology
Nancy Reid, University of Toronto
David Siegmund, Stanford University
Lucas Janson, Harvard University