Erich Leo Lehmann (20 November 1917 – 12 September 2009) was a German-born American

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may wor ...

, who made a major contribution to

nonparametric Nonparametric statistics is the branch of statistics that is not based solely on Statistical parameter, parametrized families of probability distributions (common examples of parameters are the mean and variance). Nonparametric statistics is based ...

hypothesis testing A statistical hypothesis test is a method of statistical inference used to decide whether the data at hand sufficiently support a particular hypothesis. Hypothesis testing allows us to make probabilistic statements about population parameters. ...

. He is one of the

eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

s of the Lehmann–Scheffé theorem and of the

Hodges–Lehmann estimator In statistics, the Hodges–Lehmann estimator is a robust and nonparametric estimator of a population's location parameter. For populations that are symmetric about one median, such as the (Gaussian) normal distribution or the Student ''t''-dist ...

of the median of a population.

Early life

Lehmann was born in Strasbourg, Alsace-Lorraine in 1917 to a family of

Ashkenazi Jewish Ashkenazi Jews ( ; he, יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכְּנַז, translit=Yehudei Ashkenaz, ; yi, אַשכּנזישע ייִדן, Ashkenazishe Yidn), also known as Ashkenazic Jews or ''Ashkenazim'',, Ashkenazi Hebrew pronunciation: , singu ...

ancestry. He grew up in

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian dialects, Hessian: , "Franks, Frank ford (crossing), ford on the Main (river), Main"), is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as o ...

, Germany, until the

Machtergreifung Adolf Hitler's rise to power began in the newly established Weimar Republic in September 1919 when Hitler joined the '' Deutsche Arbeiterpartei'' (DAP; German Workers' Party). He rose to a place of prominence in the early years of the party. Be ...

in 1933 his family fled to Switzerland to escape the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...

s. He graduated from high school in Zurich, and studied mathematics for two years at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge or Oxford. ...

. Following that, he emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York in late 1940. He enrolled in

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

as a post-graduate student—albeit without a prior degree—in 1941.

Career

Lehmann obtained his MA in mathematics in 1942 and his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

(under

Jerzy Neyman Jerzy Neyman (April 16, 1894 – August 5, 1981; born Jerzy Spława-Neyman; ) was a Polish mathematician and statistician who spent the first part of his professional career at various institutions in Warsaw, Poland and then at University Colleg ...

) in 1946, at the

, where he taught from 1942. From August 1944 to August 1945 he worked as an operations analyst for the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army S ...

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic ce ...

. He taught at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

and at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the n ...

during 1950–51, and then during 1951–1952 he was a visiting associate professor at Stanford University. He was an editor of "The Annals of Mathematical Statistics" and president of the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts ...

, and a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...

and the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

. In 1977 he married another statistician, Juliet Popper Shaffer, whom he had met four years earlier as the sponsor to her sabbatical visit to Berkeley. In the same year, Shaffer moved from being a psychology professor at the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

to a lecturer position in statistics at Berkeley. In 1997, on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, the department of statistics at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant uni ...

created the Erich Lehmann Fund in StatisticsErich Lehmann Fund in Statistics
/ref> to support the students of the department.

Selected publications

Books

* ''Testing Statistical Hypotheses'', 1959 * ''Basic Concepts of Probability and Statistics'', 1964, co-author J. L. Hodges * ''Elements of Finite Probability'', 1965, co-author J. L. Hodges * * ''Theory of Point Estimation'', 1983 *
''Reminiscences of a Statistician''
2007, * ''Fisher, Neyman, and the Creation of Classical Statistics'', 2011, ublished posthumously

Articles

* * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lehmann, Erich Leo 1917 births 2009 deaths University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty American statisticians Fellows of the American Statistical Association Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Mathematical statisticians