Mervin Edgar Muller (1 June 1928 – 3 December 2018) was an American computer scientist and mathematician. The

Box–Muller transform The Box–Muller transform, by George Edward Pelham Box and Mervin Edgar Muller, is a random number sampling method for generating pairs of independent, standard, normally distributed (zero expectation, unit variance) random numbers, given a ...

is named after him.

Biography

Muller was born in

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...

, Los Angeles, on 1 June 1928, as one of four sons to parents Emanuel and Bertha Muller. His parents were both immigrants from Hungary. He studied mathematics at the

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 ...

, earning a Ph.D. in 1954 under the supervision of George William Brown. Muller worked for IBM in New York, and later, fifteen years with the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

in Washington, D. C. He taught at UCLA,

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

George Mason University George Mason University (George Mason, Mason, or GMU) is a public research university in Fairfax County, Virginia with an independent City of Fairfax, Virginia postal address in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The university was origin ...

, and the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an educational institution, institution of higher education, higher (or Tertiary education, tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. Universities ty ...

before joining the faculty of

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

, where he retired as Robert Critchfield Professor of Engineering. He has three sons with his wife, Barbara McAdam Muller. He died in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

on 3 December 2018, aged 90.

Honors and awards

He was elected 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 ...

in 1975. He was also the founding president of the International Association of Statistical Computing.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muller, Mervin E. 1928 births 2018 deaths People from Hollywood, Los Angeles American people of Hungarian descent American computer scientists University of California, Los Angeles alumni University of California, Los Angeles faculty IBM people World Bank people Cornell University faculty George Mason University faculty Ohio State University faculty Princeton University faculty University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Fellows of the American Statistical Association