Jack Carl Kiefer (January 25, 1924 – August 10, 1981) was an American mathematical

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 ...

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 ...

(1952 to 1979) and the

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 ...

(1979 to 1981). His research interests included the optimal design of experiments, which was his major research area, as well as a wide variety of topics in mathematical statistics.

Biography

Jack Kiefer was born in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, to Carl Jack Kiefer and Marguerite K. Rosenau. He began his undergraduate studies at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1942, but left after one year, taking up a position as

first lieutenant First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment. The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a s ...

in 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 Signal ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. In 1946, he returned to MIT, graduating with bachelor's and master's degrees in

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and intera ...

and

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific method, scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad rang ...

in 1948 under the supervision of Harold Freeman. He then began graduate studies 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 Manhatt ...

, under the supervision of

Abraham Wald Abraham Wald (; hu, Wald Ábrahám, yi, אברהם וואַלד; – ) was a Jewish Hungarian mathematician who contributed to decision theory, geometry, and econometrics and founded the field of statistical sequential analysis. One of ...

and

Jacob Wolfowitz Jacob Wolfowitz (March 19, 1910 – July 16, 1981) was a Polish-born American Jewish statistician and Shannon Award-winning information theorist. He was the father of former United States Deputy Secretary of Defense and World Bank Group President ...

, receiving his Ph.D. in

mathematical statistics Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory, a branch of mathematics, to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques which are used for this include mathematical an ...

in 1952. While still a graduate student, he began teaching at

, remaining there until 1979, when he retired from Cornell and accepted a new position as Miller Research Professor in the Department of Statistics and Mathematics at the

. In 1957, he married Dooley Sciple, a former undergraduate student of his at Cornell, with whom he had two children. Kiefer died of a heart attack in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

on August 10, 1981.; .

Awards and honors

Kiefer was a

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

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 of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, 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 ...

(elected 1972) and of the

United States 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 Nati ...

(elected 1975). From 1969–1970 he was 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 o ...

. In 1973, Kiefer and

Michael Fisher Michael Ellis Fisher (3 September 1931 – 26 November 2021) was an English physicist, as well as chemist and mathematician, known for his many seminal contributions to statistical physics, including but not restricted to the theory of phase t ...

were the first two Cornell faculty elected as

Horace White Horace White (October 7, 1865 – November 27, 1943) was an American lawyer and politician from New York. He was the 37th Governor of New York from October 6, 1910 to December 31, 1910. Life He attended Syracuse Central High School, Cornell U ...

Professors.

Contributions

Much of Kiefer's research was on the

design of experiments The design of experiments (DOE, DOX, or experimental design) is the design of any task that aims to describe and explain the variation of information under conditions that are hypothesized to reflect the variation. The term is generally associ ...

; the ''American Statistician'' obituary calls him "undoubtedly the foremost worker in optimal experimental design". However, he also made significant contributions to other areas of statistics and optimization, including the introduction of

golden section search The golden-section search is a technique for finding an extremum (minimum or maximum) of a function inside a specified interval. For a strictly unimodal function with an extremum inside the interval, it will find that extremum, while for an interv ...

(his master's thesis work) the

Dvoretzky–Kiefer–Wolfowitz inequality In the theory of probability and statistics, the Dvoretzky–Kiefer–Wolfowitz–Massart inequality (DKW inequality) bounds how close an empirically determined distribution function will be to the distribution function from which the empirical ...

and the Bahadur-Ghosh-Kiefer representation (with R. R. Bahadur and J. K. Ghosh).

Notes

References

*. *. Reviewed in ''Biometrics'' 43 (1): 257. *. * *. *. *. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kiefer, Jack Carl Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics American statisticians Cornell University faculty University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Columbia University alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni 1924 births 1981 deaths Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American mathematicians Mathematical statisticians Deaths from heart disease

Biography

Awards and honors

Contributions

See also

Notes

References