In 1940, Irene Hesse came to work with Leslie Kish at the Survey Research Center. Under Kish, she trained many graduate students in the details of sampling.
Statisticians in History
Mollie Orshansky
Molly Orshansky developed the poverty thresholds. The poverty line has become a major feature of the architecture of American social policy.
Jack Carl Kiefer
Jack was an international leader in mathematical statistics and undoubtedly the foremost worker in optimal experimental design. Of the more than 100 items in his bibliography, more than 45 were on optimal design. He was also a recognized authority on mycology, having written several papers on classification.
Ivan Fellegi
Ivan Fellegi, was chief statistician of Canada from 1985 to 2008, heading the statistical office ranked twice by the Economist as the best in the world.
Louis Israel Dublin
Louis Dublin’s statistical research programs at Metropolitan Life gave the insurance industry a new dimension in public health and welfare service.
Florence N. David
David worked throughout World War II in the statistical sciences. She was an experimental officer for the Ordinance Board at the Ministry of Supply and a senior statistician for the Research and Experiments Department at the Ministry of Home Security. She was also a member of the Land Mines Committee at the Scientific Advisory Council and a scientific advisor on mines for the Military Experimental Establishment.
Gertrude M. Cox
Cox’s contributions include active participation in statistical societies and organizations. In 1947 she founded the Biometric Society. She was president of the ASA in 1956 and of the Biometric Society from 1968 and 1969.
Jerome Cornfield
Jerome Cornfield, a former president of the American Statistical Association (1974) was the director of the biostatistics center and a professor of statistics in the department of statistics at The George Washington University. He is also known as one of the world’s leading statisticians.
Irving J. Good
Irving J. Good was born in London in 1916 and became proficient in mental arithmetic by the age of nine. Lying in bed with diphtheria, he turned over in his mind his sister’s lesson on square roots. On his own, he realized the irrationality of the square root of two and solved Pell’s equation. The […]
Richard Fletcher
Fletcher was one of the founding fathers of the American Statistical Association and was elected the association’s first president in December of 1839.