Michael Barrett Woodroofe (March 17, 1940 – February 22, 2022) was an American probabilist and

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 ...

. He was a

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who pr ...

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ''wikt:Statistik#German, Statistik'', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of ...

and of

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, where he was the

Leonard J. Savage Leonard Jimmie Savage (born Leonard Ogashevitz; 20 November 1917 – 1 November 1971) was an American mathematician and statistician. Economist Milton Friedman said Savage was "one of the few people I have met whom I would unhesitatingly call a ge ...

Professor until his retirement. He was noted for his work in

sequential analysis In statistics, sequential analysis or sequential hypothesis testing is statistical analysis where the sample size is not fixed in advance. Instead data are evaluated as they are collected, and further sampling is stopped in accordance with a pre- ...

and nonlinear renewal theory, in central limit theory, and in

nonparametric inference Nonparametric statistics is the branch of statistics that is not based solely on parametrized families of probability distributions (common examples of parameters are the mean and variance). Nonparametric statistics is based on either being dist ...

with shape constraints.

Education and career

Woodroofe was born in Corvalis,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, and grew up in nearby

Athena, Oregon Athena is a city in Umatilla County, Oregon, United States. The population was 1,126 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Pendleton– Hermiston Micropolitan Statistical Area. History Athena, about halfway between Pendleton, Oregon, and Wa ...

. He received his

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University of ...

in mathematics from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1962. He went on to the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

for his masters and PhD in mathematics, which he completed in 1965. After his PhD, he spent a brief stint as an assistant professor at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

, before moving to the

in 1968. He spent the rest of his career at Michigan, where he was a founding member of the statistics department. In 1994 he was named the Leonard J. Savage Professor, a position which he held until his retirement in 2009. Woodroofe was particularly noted for his work in

and nonlinear renewal theory, in central limit theory, and in

with shape constraints. Woodroofe advised over 40 graduate students, many of whom have gone on to distinguished careers of their own. He published over 100 research articles, and 2 books. He served as editor of the ''

Annals of Statistics The ''Annals of Statistics'' is a peer-reviewed statistics journal published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. It was started in 1973 as a continuation in part of the '' Annals of Mathematical Statistics (1930)'', which was split into th ...

'' from 1992 to 1994, and was the last solo editor of the journal.

Personal life

Woodroofe died on February 22, 2022, at the age of 81.

Awards and honors

* The ''Michael Woodroofe Lecture Series'' was established in 2008 by the University of Michigan Department of Statistics in recognition of Woodroofe's contributions. * A ''Conference on Nonparametric Inference and Probability with Applications to Science'' was held in 2005 to honor Woodroofe's career on the occasion of his 65th birthday. * Woodroofe was a

fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

of the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts o ...

Selected publications

* * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Woodroofe, Michael 1940 births 2022 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Academic journal editors American statisticians University of Oregon alumni University of Michigan faculty Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Carnegie Mellon University faculty Stanford University alumni People from Corvallis, Oregon Probability theorists Mathematicians from Oregon Annals of Statistics editors