Michel Loève (January 22, 1907 – February 17, 1979) was a French-American probabilist and

mathematical statistician Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory, a branch of mathematics, to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques which are used for this include mathematical an ...

, of Jewish origin. He is known in mathematical statistics and probability theory for the Karhunen–Loève theorem and Karhunen–Loève transform. Michel Loève was born in

Jaffa Jaffa, in Hebrew Yafo ( he, יָפוֹ, ) and in Arabic Yafa ( ar, يَافَا) and also called Japho or Joppa, the southern and oldest part of Tel Aviv-Yafo, is an ancient port city in Israel. Jaffa is known for its association with the b ...

(then part of the Ottoman Empire) in 1907, to a Jewish family. He passed most of his childhood years in Egypt and received his primary and secondary education there in French schools. Later, after achieving the grades of B.L. in 1931 and A.B. in 1936, he studied

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

Université de Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...

under Paul Lévy, and received his '' Doctorat ès Sciences (Mathématiques)'' in 1941. In 1936 was employed as actuaire of the University of Lyon. Because of his Jewish origin, he was arrested during the German occupation of France and sent to Drancy internment camp. One of his books is dedicated "To Line and To the students and teachers of the School in the Camp de Drancy". Having survived the Holocaust, after the liberation he became between 1944 and 1946 chief of research at the

Institut Henri Poincaré The Henri Poincaré Institute (or IHP for ''Institut Henri Poincaré'') is a mathematics research institute part of Sorbonne University, in association with the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). It is located in the 5th arrond ...

at Paris University, then until 1948 worked at the University of London. After one term as a visiting professor at Columbia University he accepted the position of professor of Mathematics at

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

, in 1955 adding the title professor of

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 ...

. He is the author of one of the earliest books on measure-theoretic probability theory and one of the best known textbooks. He is memorialized via the

Loève Prize The Line and Michel Loève International Prize in Probability (Loève Prize) was created in 1992 in honor of Michel Loève by his widow Line. The prize, awarded every two years, is intended to recognize outstanding contributions by researchers i ...

created by his widow Line.

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University of California in MemoriamPhotograph from Portraits of Statisticians
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Loeve, Michel 1907 births 1979 deaths French statisticians Probability theorists University of Paris alumni Academics of the University of London Columbia University staff University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty 20th-century French mathematicians Egyptian emigrants to France French emigrants to the United States Emigrants from the Ottoman Empire to Egypt

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