Committee on the History of Statistics

Objectives and Expected Products

  • Maintain an archive of articles on the history of:
    • statistical methodology,
    • official statistics,
    • statistical computing,
    • statistical education,
    • survey statistics,
    • business & industrial statistics,
    • environmetrics,
    • probability,
    • stochastic processes. 
  • Document the history of:
  • Write new articles in areas of interest to the community.

If you are interested in participating in the committee, please contact the PO liaison below.

Committee Members

Chair

  • Jana Asher, Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania USA

Members

  • Amanda L. Golbeck, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, USA
  • Wai Keung Li, University of Hongkong, Hongkong
  • Georg Lindgren, Lund University, Sweden
  • Laurent Mazliak, Sorbonne University, France
  • Glenn Shafer, Rutgers University, USA
  • Gerrit Stemerdink, ISI, The Netherlands

Liaison with the ISI Executive Committee

  • The chair

Liaison with the ISI PO

  • Olivia van Dijck-Timbol

Events

WSC 2021 — invited paper session 88

Title: “Betty, Mario, Pilar, Danie and Esther: some important statisticians”.

Much of statistical history research has focused on Europe and North America. In the context of reevaluating the social role of some of the founders of statistics, a request to provide information about researchers outside this part of the world has been made. This session is a small step in that direction. It has five speakers, each providing a short presentation of their respective statistical researchers, with their historical importance.

Chair:

  • Alexandra Schmidt, McGill University, Canada.

Speakers:

  • Brent Henderson, CSIRO, Australia: Betty Allan, Australia.
  • Georg Lindgren, Lund University, Sweden: Mario Wschebor, Uruguay.
  • Rosangela Loschi, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil: Pilar Iglesias, Chile.
  • Peter Guttorp, Norwegian Computing Center, Norway.
  • Danie Krige, South Africa.
  • Thordis Torarinsdottir, Norwegian Computing Center, Norway.
  • Esther Samuel-Kahn, Israel.

WSC 2019 — invited papers session 355

Speakers:

  • Amanda Golbeck — “Elizabeth L. Scott: A Portrait of the Statistician as a Young Woman”.
  • Georg Lindgren — “Steve O. Rice (1907–1986) : Inspired by random noise, inspiring statistics research”.
  • Jean-Louis Bodin — “A view on 50 years of life of the ISI”.
  • Panel discussion about the history committee.

Links