was a Japanese
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 ...
who championed the ideas of
R.A. 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 ...
and went on to influence the fields of
quality control
Quality control (QC) is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. ISO 9000 defines quality control as "a part of quality management focused on fulfilling quality requirements".
This approach places ...
and
biometrics.
Life
Born
Otaru, Hokkaidō
is a city and port in Shiribeshi Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan, northwest of Sapporo. The city faces Ishikari Bay and the Sea of Japan, and has long served as the main port of the bay. With its many historical buildings, Otaru is a popular tou ...
, Masuyama graduated in
physics from the
Imperial University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...
in 1937 and earned his
doctorate in 1943. Characterising Fisher's approach to statistics as ''the science of inference and planning'', Masuyama worked across a wide range of agencies including: the
Japan Meteorological Agency; the
University of Tokyo School of Medicine; the
Institute of Statistical Mathematics
An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body.
In some countries, institutes can ...
; the
Indian Statistical Institute, where he collaborated with Fisher, another frequent visitor; the
Ministry of Public Health and Welfare
Ministry may refer to:
Government
* Ministry (collective executive), the complete body of government ministers under the leadership of a prime minister
* Ministry (government department), a department of a government
Religion
* Christian mi ...
, where his teaching in
design of experiments profoundly influenced the young
Genichi Taguchi; the
University of North Carolina, and
The Catholic University of America. In 1970, he joined the applied mathematics department at the University of Tokyo and remained there until his retirement in 1988.
Masuyama held many radical views on the application of statistics to
human biology.
Honours
*
Asahi Prize, (1948)
*
Deming Prize, (1951)
External links
Obituaryby Manabu Iwasaki, in ''Biometric'', Bulletin of the ''International Biometric Society'' (
pdf
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
)
1912 births
2005 deaths
Japanese statisticians
Catholic University of America people
University of Tokyo faculty
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