Edmund Gehan

ASA Fellow Edmund Alpheus Gehan, 92, passed away September 28, 2021, in Houston, Texas. Gehan graduated from St. Augustine’s High School in Brooklyn, New York, and earned a BA in mathematics from Manhattan College in 1951. He later pursued graduate work at the University of North Carolina, earning a master’s and PhD in experimental statistics and public health in 1957. For most of his life, Gehan called Houston and the Washington, DC, area his home, but cherished the time he lived in London, Paris, and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

For more than 60 years, Gehan worked as a biostatistician, collaborating with cancer research investigators at the National Cancer Institute, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Birkbeck College (London), University of Paris, and Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University, where he was emeritus professor of biostatistics. He was an elected member of the International Statistical Institute and president of the International Biometric Society (Eastern North American Region) and International Society of Clinical Biostatistics.

One of Gehan’s most significant statistical accomplishments is the development of the Gehan-Wilcoxon test, which plays a critical role in developing the understanding of effectiveness of cancer treatments on patient survival. He enjoyed collaborating with colleagues and particularly valued his time working with Sir David Cox, EJ Freireich, and Emil Frei. His collaborations with Freireich and Frei led to improved models for evaluating leukemia therapies for survival, which was a landmark contribution to the field.

Overall, Gehan contributed to more than 225 statistical and collaborative publications with research scientists, including first authorship of Statistics in Medical Research: Developments in Clinical Trials. He made many important contributions to biostatistical methodology in survival analysis, phase II clinical trials, and prognostic factor studies.He also served on the editorial boards of several high-impact medical journals.

Read more about Gehan’s life in his complete obituary.

Bob Hayden

Robert William Hayden, 77, of Wilton, New Hampshire, and formerly of Ashland, New Hampshire, died October 9, 2021.

Bob was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to Ralph D. and Margaret (Ahern) Hayden. He graduated Ellington High School in Ellington, Connecticut, as valedictorian of the Class of 1962. He attended MIT for undergraduate studies, earned a master’s degree from the University of Connecticut, and went on to earn a PhD from Iowa State University. He served as a professor of mathematics and statistics at Plymouth State University for more than a decade and prided himself on making the subject matter more accessible to those students who struggled with math. In fact, Bob’s favorite students were those majoring in nursing, social work, and education for whom math did not come naturally, but who put in the extra effort to complete the required math courses for their areas of study. He truly admired their drive and determination and would do everything in his ability to help them grasp the material.

Bob wrote articles for math and statistics journals and was published many times. He also coauthored children’s math study books that have been used for years in classrooms across the United States.

Though he dedicated his life to his chosen profession, Bob maintained many hobbies and interests. He had a great affinity for old factories, mill buildings, and other technical sites that combined function with production. He loved apples and apple trees, spending every autumn foraging for new and different apples to sample, and he loved to travel throughout the US and Canada. He admired old Buicks, especially those from the 1950s.

Bob took an active interest in the lives of his nieces and nephews, enthusiastically showing up for them in support of their various activities and studies. Though he held no religious faith of his own, he was endlessly grateful for the thoughts and prayers of hundreds of people across the country who kept a place for him on their prayer lists.

Read the many tributes from members of the ASA Section on Statistics and Data Science Education, who remember Bob as a supporter of AP Statistics. Also, learn more about Bob in his full obituary.

Elliot A. Tanis

Elliot A. Tanis, who passed away on July 22, 2021, was a longtime ASA member and Fellow. He was born in 1934 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, but his family moved regularly, living in Wisconsin and Iowa as he grew up.

In fact, Tanis first met his wife, Elaine Buteyn, in Wisconsin, when they were children. They were married on December 29, 1959.

Tanis earned his master’s and PhD degrees in mathematics from the University of Iowa and began his teaching career at the University of Nebraska in 1963. He soon moved to Hope College, however, and taught mathematics with an emphasis on statistics from 1965 until his retirement in 2000, at which time he was named a professor emeritus.

During his years of teaching, Tanis wrote Probability and Statistical Inference in 1977 with his University of Iowa mentor, Robert Hogg. The publication has since had 10 editions, including in Chinese.

In 1976, Tanis served as chair of the Michigan Section of the Mathematical Association of America and as section governor from 1989 to 1992. The section awarded him a teaching award in 1992 and a distinguished service award in 1996.

Read more about Tanis’s career.