Lawrence Alan Shepp (September 9, 1936
Brooklyn, NY – April 23, 2013,
Tucson, AZ
, "(at the) base of the black ill
, nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town"
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) was an American
mathematician
A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems.
Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change.
History
On ...
, specializing in
statistics and computational
tomography
Tomography is imaging by sections or sectioning that uses any kind of penetrating wave. The method is used in radiology, archaeology, biology, atmospheric science, geophysics, oceanography, plasma physics, materials science, astrophysics, ...
.
Shepp obtained his PhD from
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
in 1961 with a dissertation entitled ''Recurrent Sums of Random Variables''. His advisor was
William Feller
William "Vilim" Feller (July 7, 1906 – January 14, 1970), born Vilibald Srećko Feller, was a Croatian- American mathematician specializing in probability theory.
Early life and education
Feller was born in Zagreb to Ida Oemichen-Perc, a Cro ...
. He joined
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 1962. He joined
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 ...
in 1997. He joined
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...
in 2010.
His work in tomography has had biomedical imaging applications, and he has also worked as professor of radiology 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 ...
(1973–1996), as a mathematician in the radiology service of
Columbia Presbyterian Hospital The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is a nonprofit academic medical center in New York City affiliated with two Ivy League medical schools, Cornell University and Columbia University. The hospital comprises seven distinct campuses located in the New Y ...
.
Awards and honors
* 2014:
IEEE
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operat ...
Marie Sklodowska-Curie Award
* 2012: Became a fellow of the
American Mathematical Society
The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...
.
* 1992: Elected member of the Institute of Medicine
* 1989: Elected member of the
National Academy of Sciences
* 1979: IEEE Distinguished Scientist Award in 1979
* 1979:
Lester R. Ford Award (with
Joseph Kruskal)
See also
*
Fishburn–Shepp inequality
*
Shepp–Logan phantom
*
Shepp–Olkin conjecture
*
Coupon collector's problem
In probability theory, the coupon collector's problem describes "collect all coupons and win" contests. It asks the following question: If each box of a brand of cereals contains a coupon, and there are ''n'' different types of coupons, what is th ...
*
Discrete tomography
Discrete tomography
Herman, G. T. and Kuba, A., Discrete Tomography: Foundations, Algorithms, and Applications, Birkhäuser Boston, 1999
Herman, G. T. and Kuba, A., Advances in Discrete Tomography and Its Applications, Birkhäuser Boston, 2007
fo ...
*
Dubins path In geometry, the term Dubins path typically refers to the shortest curve that connects two points in the two-dimensional Euclidean plane (i.e. ''x-y'' plane) with a constraint on the curvature of the path and with prescribed initial and terminal tan ...
*
Gaussian process
*
Hook length formula
In combinatorial mathematics, the hook length formula is a formula for the number of standard Young tableaux whose shape is a given Young diagram.
It has applications in diverse areas such as representation theory, probability, and algorithm analy ...
*
Parallel parking problem
The parallel parking problem is a motion planning problem in control theory and mechanics to determine the path a car must take to parallel park into a parking space. The front wheels of a car are permitted to turn, but the rear wheels must stay ...
*
Sieve estimator In statistics, sieve estimators are a class of non-parametric estimators which use progressively more complex models to estimate an unknown high-dimensional function as more data becomes available, with the aim of asymptotically reducing error tow ...
*
Ridge function
References
External links
*
Obituary at Penn
Princeton University alumni
Rutgers University faculty
University of Pennsylvania faculty
20th-century American mathematicians
21st-century American mathematicians
American statisticians
Probability theorists
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
1936 births
2013 deaths
Members of the National Academy of Medicine
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