Norman Lloyd Johnson (9 January 1917, Ilford,

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and Grea ...

, England – 18 November 2004, Chapel Hill,

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...

, United States) was a professor of statistics and author or editor of several standard reference works in statistics and

probability theory Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expressing it through a set ...

Education

Johnson attended

Ilford County High School Ilford County High School (often abbreviated to ICHS) is a selective secondary grammar school for boys located in the town of Barkingside of the London Borough of Redbridge. The school was formerly called ''Park High Grade School'' and as a res ...

, and went on to

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

, where he obtained a B.Sc. in mathematics 1936 and a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in statistics in 1937 and 1938.

Career

On qualification in 1938, Johnson was appointed Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Statistics at UCL. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, he served under his former Professor Egon Pearson as an Experimental Officer with the

Ordnance Board The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its primary responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots and forts required for the defence o ...

. He returned to the Statistics Department at UCL in 1945 and stayed there until 1962, as Assistant Lecturer, Lecturer and then Reader. In 1948 he was awarded a Ph.D. in Statistics for his work on the Johnson system of frequency curves. In 1949 he became a Fellow of the

Institute of Actuaries The Institute of Actuaries was one of the two professional bodies which represented actuaries in the United Kingdom. The institute was based in England, while the other body, the Faculty of Actuaries, was based in Scotland. While the Institute an ...

. Two visiting appointments in the USA, at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

(UNC) in 1952–1953 and at

Case Institute of Technology Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location i ...

in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1960–1961, led to his permanent appointment as Professor in the Department of Statistics at UNC in 1962. He was Chairman 1971–1976 and officially retired in 1982, but continued to be active in scholarship and research as

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

almost until his death. UNC named a distinguished endowed chair in his honour. He expressed a wish to retire completely and return to live in Ilford, but never managed it.

Publications

He wrote, together with

Samuel Kotz Samuel Kotz (30 August 1930 Harbin, China – 16 March 2010 Silver Spring, Maryland) was a professor and research scholar in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering, School of Engineering and Applied Science at The Geor ...

, a standard reference series, ''Distributions in Statistics''. This series has been described as of "virtually Biblical authority", a comment that he (a devout Christian) firmly rejected. He was editor-in-chief of the 10-volume '' Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences'', widely regarded as one of the most important reference works in statistical methodology. He also wrote several textbooks and about 180 papers. His book "Survival Models" was co-authored with his wife Regina Elandt Johnson, herself a professor of biostatistics.

Honours

He was honoured in numerous ways, including the Wilks Award 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 ...

, the Shewhart Medal of the

American Society for Quality Control The American Society for Quality (ASQ), formerly the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC), is a society of quality professionals, with nearly 80,000 members. History ASQC was established on 16 February 1946 by 253 members in Milwaukee, ...

and a D.Sc. degree from UCL.

References

*Campbell B. Read (2004) A Conversation with Norman L. Johnson, ''Statistical Science'', 19, 544–560
Project Euclid

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Norman L. 1917 births 2004 deaths People educated at Ilford County High School Academics of University College London Alumni of University College London English statisticians 20th-century English mathematicians People from Ilford Fellows of the American Statistical Association