Frank Wilcoxon (2 September 1892 – 18 November 1965) was a

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe t ...

and statistician, known for the development of several statistical tests.

Education and career

Frank Wilcoxon was born to

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

parents on 2 September 1892 in

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns a ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

.Bradley, R.A. (1966) ''Obituary: Frank Wilcoxon.'' Biometrics 22(1): 192–194 He grew up in

Catskill, New York Catskill is a town in the southeastern section of Greene County, New York, United States. The population was 11,298 at the 2020 census, the largest town in the county. The western part of the town is in the Catskill Park. The town contains a v ...

, but received part of his education in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. In 1917, he graduated from

Pennsylvania Military College Widener University is a private university in Chester, Pennsylvania. The university has three other campuses: two in Pennsylvania (Harrisburg and Exton) and one in Wilmington, Delaware. Founded as The Bullock School for Boys in 1821, the school ...

with a

B.Sc. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

After the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

he entered graduate studies, first at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

, where he was awarded an

M.S. A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

in chemistry in 1921, and then at

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

, gaining a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

physical chemistry Physical chemistry is the study of macroscopic and microscopic phenomena in chemical systems in terms of the principles, practices, and concepts of physics such as motion, energy, force, time, thermodynamics, quantum chemistry, statistica ...

in 1924. Wilcoxon entered a research career, working at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research from 1925 to 1941. He then moved to the

Atlas Powder Company Atlas Powder Company was an American explosives and chemicals company. It was one of the two companies that emerged out of a court-ordered breakup of the explosives monopoly of Du Pont Powder Company, the explosives and gunpowder company founded ...

, where he designed and directed the Control Laboratory, before joining the

American Cyanamid Company American Cyanamid Company was a leading American conglomerate which became one of the nation's top 100 manufacturing companies during the 1970s and 1980s, according to the Fortune 500 listings at the time. It started in fertilizer, but added ...

in 1943. During this time he developed an interest in inferential statistics through the study of

Ronald Fisher Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher (17 February 1890 – 29 July 1962) was a British polymath who was active as a mathematician, statistician, biologist, geneticist, and academic. For his work in statistics, he has been described as "a genius who ...

's 1925 text, '' Statistical Methods for Research Workers''. He retired in 1957.

Research

Over his career Wilcoxon published over 70 papers.Karas, J. & Savage, I.R. (1967) ''Publications of Frank Wilcoxon (1892–1965).'' Biometrics 23(1): 1–10 His most well-known paperWilcoxon, F. (1945) ''Individual Comparisons by Ranking Methods.'' Biometrics Bulletin 1: 80–83. contained the two new statistical tests that still bear his name, the Wilcoxon rank-sum test and the

Wilcoxon signed-rank test The Wilcoxon signed-rank test is a non-parametric statistical hypothesis test used either to test the location of a population based on a sample of data, or to compare the locations of two populations using two matched samples., p. 350 The one-sa ...

. These are

non-parametric Nonparametric statistics is the branch of statistics that is not based solely on parametrized families of probability distributions (common examples of parameters are the mean and variance). Nonparametric statistics is based on either being distri ...

alternatives to the unpaired and paired Student's t-tests respectively. He died on November 18, 1965.

References

External links

* Brookes, E. Bruce (2001
Tales of Statisticians: Frank Wilcoxon.
In ''Acquiring Statistics:Techniques and Concepts for Historians.'' (accessed 26 November 2005) * Portraits of Statistician
Frank Wilcoxon
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilcoxon, Frank 1892 births 1965 deaths American physical chemists American statisticians Irish statisticians Widener University alumni Rutgers University alumni Cornell University alumni Fellows of the American Statistical Association