George Casella (January 22, 1951 – June 17, 2012) was a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Statistics at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

. He died from

multiple myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, an ...

Academic career

Casella completed his undergraduate education at

Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...

and graduate education at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

. He served on the faculty of

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

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 teach an ...

, and the

. His contributions focused on the area of statistics including

Monte Carlo method Monte Carlo methods, or Monte Carlo experiments, are a broad class of computational algorithms that rely on repeated random sampling to obtain numerical results. The underlying concept is to use randomness to solve problems that might be determi ...

model selection Model selection is the task of selecting a statistical model from a set of candidate models, given data. In the simplest cases, a pre-existing set of data is considered. However, the task can also involve the design of experiments such that the ...

, and genomic analysis. He was particularly active in

Bayesian Thomas Bayes (/beɪz/; c. 1701 – 1761) was an English statistician, philosopher, and Presbyterian minister. Bayesian () refers either to a range of concepts and approaches that relate to statistical methods based on Bayes' theorem, or a followe ...

and

empirical Bayes Empirical Bayes methods are procedures for statistical inference in which the prior probability distribution is estimated from the data. This approach stands in contrast to standard Bayesian methods, for which the prior distribution is fixed be ...

methods, with works connecting with the

Stein phenomenon In decision theory and estimation theory, Stein's example (also known as Stein's phenomenon or Stein's paradox) is the observation that when three or more parameters are estimated simultaneously, there exist combined estimators more accurate on ave ...

, on assessing and accelerating the convergence of

Markov chain Monte Carlo In statistics, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods comprise a class of algorithms for sampling from a probability distribution. By constructing a Markov chain that has the desired distribution as its equilibrium distribution, one can obtain ...

methods, as in his Rao-Blackwellisation technique, and recasting

lasso A lasso ( or ), also called lariat, riata, or reata (all from Castilian, la reata 're-tied rope'), is a loop of rope designed as a restraint to be thrown around a target and tightened when pulled. It is a well-known tool of the Spanish an ...

as Bayesian posterior mode estimation with independent

Laplace Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French scholar and polymath whose work was important to the development of engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, astronomy, and philosophy. He summarized ...

priors.

Awards

Casella was named as a Fellow of the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts on November 27, 1839, and is the second oldest continuousl ...

and 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 o ...

in 1988, and he was made an Elected Fellow of the

International Statistical Institute The International Statistical Institute (ISI) is a professional association of statisticians. It was founded in 1885, although there had been international statistical congresses since 1853. The institute has about 4,000 elected members from gov ...

in 1989. In 2009, he was made a Foreign Member of the

Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences The Spanish Royal Academy of Sciences ( Spanish: ''Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales'') is an academic institution and learned society that was founded in Madrid in 1847. It is dedicated to the study and research of mathem ...

Selected bibliography

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References

External links

* * 1951 births 2012 deaths Deaths from multiple myeloma American statisticians Fellows of the American Statistical Association University of Florida faculty Fordham University alumni Purdue University alumni Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute Cornell University faculty The Bronx High School of Science alumni {{US-statistician-stub