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:
  • the ISI,
  • the ISI Associations,
  • national statistical organisations.
• 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.

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

• Founders of Statistics
• Statistical scientists outside of Europe and North America
• ASA History of Statitics
• History of Statistics section of RSS