Kirstine Smith (April 12, 1878 – November 11, 1939) was a Danish
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 ...
. She is credited with the creation of the field of
optimal design of experiments.
Background
Smith grew up in the town of
Nykøbing Mors
Nykøbing Mors is the largest town on the island of Mors in the Limfjord in Denmark. The town received its charter in 1299 and has a population of 9,033 (1 January 2022). ,
Denmark
)
, song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast")
, song_type = National and royal anthem
, image_map = EU-Denmark.svg
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark
...
. In 1903, she graduated from the
University of Copenhagen
The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in ...
with a degree in mathematics and physics. After, she worked as secretary to astronomer and statistician
Thorvald Thiele[ Gumpertz, M.L. Thumbnail biography of Kirstine Smith (Accessed 23 August 2013).](_blank)
/ref> and later with the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea
The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES; french: Conseil International de l'Exploration de la Mer, ''CIEM'') is a regional fishery advisory body and the world's oldest intergovernmental science organization. ICES is headqu ...
for which she authored several volumes on fish populations.[Crary Group (Accessed 23 August 2013 via Google archive).](_blank)
In 1916, Smith was admitted for doctoral training at the University of London
The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...
where Karl Pearson
Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...
had founded the first university statistics department. She was a student of Pearson who described her as “brilliant” in a letter to 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 a ...
. At London, she produced an influential paper in the journal Biometrika
''Biometrika'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Oxford University Press for thBiometrika Trust The editor-in-chief is Paul Fearnhead (Lancaster University). The principal focus of this journal is theoretical statistics. It was es ...
on minimum chi-squared estimation of the correlation coefficient. Disagreements about aspects of her work led to increased friction between Pearson and Fisher.
In her dissertation, which was published in 1918 (see below), she invented optimal design
In the design of experiments, optimal designs (or optimum designs) are a class of experimental designs that are optimal with respect to some statistical criterion. The creation of this field of statistics has been credited to Danish statist ...
where she computed G-optimal designs for polynomial regression
In statistics, polynomial regression is a form of regression analysis in which the relationship between the independent variable ''x'' and the dependent variable ''y'' is modelled as an ''n''th degree polynomial in ''x''. Polynomial regression fi ...
of order up to 6. After finishing her doctorate she moved to Copenhagen
Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...
, where she worked as a researcher for the Commission for Ocean Research 1918 to 1924 and with Johannes Schmidt at the Carlsberg Laboratory
The Carlsberg Research Laboratory is a private scientific research center in Copenhagen, Denmark under the Carlsberg Group. It was founded in 1875 by J. C. Jacobsen, the founder of the Carlsberg brewery, with the purpose of advancing biochemica ...
from 1920 to 1921. She eventually left research after obtaining her teaching credentials to become a high school teacher.
Selected statistical papers
*Smith, K. (1916). On the ‘best’ values of the constants in frequency distributions. ''Biometrika'', ''11''(3), 262–276.
*Smith, K. (1918). On the standard deviations of adjusted and interpolated values of an observed polynomial function and its constants and the guidance they give towards a proper choice of the distribution of observations. ''Biometrika'', ''12''(1/2), 1–85.
*Smith, K. (1922).The standard deviations of fraternal and parental correlation coefficients. ''Biometrika'', ''14''(1/2), 1–22.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Kirstine
Women statisticians
People from Morsø Municipality
Danish statisticians
Danish women scientists
University of Copenhagen alumni
Alumni of University College London
1878 births
1939 deaths
20th-century Danish scientists
20th-century Danish mathematicians
20th-century women mathematicians