John McKinley Chambers is the creator of the

S programming language S is a statistical programming language developed primarily by John Chambers and (in earlier versions) Rick Becker and Allan Wilks of Bell Laboratories. The aim of the language, as expressed by John Chambers, is "to turn ideas into software, quic ...

, and core member of the

R programming language R is a programming language for statistical computing and graphics supported by the R Core Team and the R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Created by statisticians Ross Ihaka and Robert Gentleman, R is used among data miners, bioinform ...

project. He was awarded the 1998

ACM Software System Award The ACM Software System Award is an annual award that honors people or an organization "for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts, in commercial acceptance, or both". It is awarded b ...

for developing S.

Early life

Chambers received a

Bachelor of Science 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 ...

from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

in 1963. He received a

Master of Arts A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

in 1965 and a

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 ...

degree in 1966, both in statistics, from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Career

Chambers started at

Bell Laboratories Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mult ...

in 1966 as a member of its technical staff. From 1981 to 1983, he was the head of its Advanced Software Department and from 1983 to 1989 he was the head of its Statistics and Data Analysis Research Department. In 1989, he moved back to full-time research and in 1995, he became a distinguished member of the technical staff. In 1997, he was made the first

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 Bell Labs and was cited for "pioneering contributions to the field of statistical computing". He remained a distinguished member of the technical staff and a Fellow until his retirement from Bell Labs in 2005. After retiring from Bell Labs, Chambers became a visiting professor at the

University of Auckland , mottoeng = By natural ability and hard work , established = 1883; years ago , endowment = NZD $293 million (31 December 2021) , budget = NZD $1.281 billion (31 December 2021) , chancellor = Cecilia Tarrant , vice_chancellor = Dawn F ...

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

and

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

.Stanford University Department of Statistics Page for John M. Chambers.
Accessed January 16, 2010. Since 2008, he has been active at Stanford, currently serving as Senior Advisor of its

data science Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses scientific methods, processes, algorithms and systems to extract or extrapolate knowledge and insights from noisy, structured and unstructured data, and apply knowledge from data across a br ...

program and an adjunct professor in Stanford's Department of Statistics. Chambers is 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 ...

, the

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific respons ...

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 ...

Awards and accomplishments

Chambers has received the following awards: * 1998, awarded the

for developing the

. The award was presented on May 15, 1999. * 2004, awarded an honorary Doctor of Mathematics degree from the

University of Waterloo The University of Waterloo (UWaterloo, UW, or Waterloo) is a public research university with a main campus in Waterloo, Ontario Waterloo is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of three cities in the Regional Municipality ...

John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award

Following his 1998 ACM Software System Award, Chambers donated his prize money (US$10,000) to the American Statistical Association to endow an award for novel statistical software, the ''John M. Chambers Statistical Software Award''.

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chambers, John McKinley Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Toronto alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Programming language designers Scientists at Bell Labs Stanford University Department of Statistics faculty Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science R (programming language) people Computational statisticians