Lillian Rose (Lila) Elveback (December 5, 1915 – April 30, 2004) was an American biostatistician, a professor of biostatistics at the

Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences The Mayo Clinic Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (MCGSBS), formerly known as Mayo Graduate School (MGS), is one of the schools of higher education within the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine and Science. It offers graduate training in the bi ...

, a textbook author, a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

, and a founder of the

American College of Epidemiology The American College of Epidemiology (ACE) is an American organization incorporated in 1979 to support and promote the work of American epidemiologists. It is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Members of the American College of Epidemiology are p ...

Life

Elveback was born on December 5, 1915 in

Sidney, Montana Sidney is a city in and the county seat of Richland County, Montana, United States, less than west of the North Dakota border. The population was 6,346 at the 2020 census. The city lies along the Yellowstone River and is in proximity to the ...

. She graduated from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 1941, earned a master's degree 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 ...

in 1948, and returned to the University of Minnesota for a doctorate, which she completed in 1955. Her dissertation was ''Some Aspects of Estimation Problems in Follow-Up Studies in Chronic Disease'', and was supervised by

Joseph Berkson Joseph Berkson (14 May 1899 – 12 September 1982) was trained as a physicist (BSc 1920 College of City of New York, M.A., 1922, Columbia), physician (M.D., 1927, Johns Hopkins), and statistician (Dr.Sc., 1928, Johns Hopkins).O'Fallon WM (1998). " ...

. She became a professor of biostatistics at

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

before moving in 1961 to the

Public Health Research Institute The Public Health Research Institute (PHRI) was founded in 1942 by New York City's mayor, Fiorello La Guardia, who appointed David M. Heyman to lead it as an independent not-for-profit research organization. In the late 1980s it was referred to ...

in New York, where she became head of statistics in the division of epidemiology. She worked at the Mayo Clinic from 1965 until her retirement in 1980, and was one of the founding directors of the

at its incorporation in 1979. She died on April 30, 2004, in

Rochester, Minnesota Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Olmsted County. Located on rolling bluffs on the Zumbro River's south fork in Southeast Minnesota, the city is the home and birthplace of the renowned Mayo Clinic. Acco ...

Textbook

Elveback was the coauthor, with John P. Fox and Carrie E. Hall, of a textbook on epidemiology, ''Epidemiology: Man and Disease'' (Macmillan, 1970).

Recognition

In 1970, Elveback was elected as a

"for her outstanding role in advancing the statistical quality of research at the Mayo Clinic by consulting and teaching, and for significant publications in medical statistics".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elveback, Lila 1915 births 2004 deaths People from Sidney, Montana American statisticians Women statisticians University of Minnesota alumni Columbia University alumni Tulane University faculty Mayo Clinic people Biostatisticians