Richard Eugene Barlow (born January 12, 1931) is an American mathematician and mathematical statistician, who is considered with Frank Proschan as the founder of modern

reliability theory Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specifi ...

. He was a professor at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

from 1963 until his retirement in 1999. He introduced the concept of "Total Time on Test" processes in reliability theory. He and Proschan cowrote the book ''Mathematical Theory of Reliability''.

Biography

Barlow received his bachelor's degree in mathematics from Knox College in 1953 and his master's degree from 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 ...

in 1955. In 1961 he received his doctorate in mathematical statistics 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 ...

under

Samuel Karlin Samuel Karlin (June 8, 1924 – December 18, 2007) was an American mathematician at Stanford University in the late 20th century. Biography Karlin was born in Janów, Poland and immigrated to Chicago as a child. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish hous ...

. His dissertation was titled ''Applications of Semi-Markov Processes to Counter and Reliability Problems''. After graduation, he worked at the

Institute for Defense Analyses The Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) is an American non-profit corporation that administers three federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) – the Systems and Analyses Center (SAC), the Science and Technology Policy Institute ...

for a year. He was from 1963 until his retirement in 1999 a professor at UC Berkeley. While at Berkeley, he mentored several doctoral students in

operations research Operations research ( en-GB, operational research) (U.S. Air Force Specialty Code: Operations Analysis), often shortened to the initialism OR, is a discipline that deals with the development and application of analytical methods to improve deci ...

. He was a guest scientist at the Boeing Laboratories in 1966 and at Florida State University in 1975 and 1976 (with Frank Proschan). From 1963 to 1969 he was an advisor to the

Rand Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...

. In addition to reliability theory, he dealt with probabilistic modeling in Bayesian statistics and statistical data analysis. In 1991 he was awarded the

John von Neumann Theory Prize The John von Neumann Theory Prize of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is awarded annually to an individual (or sometimes a group) who has made fundamental and sustained contributions to theory in operati ...

with Frank Proschan. He is a Fellow 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 ...

, 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 ...

, and the

Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) is an international society for practitioners in the fields of operations research (O.R.), management science, and analytics. It was established in 1995 with the merger of ...

Personal life

He is married since 1956 and has four children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barlow, Richard E. American statisticians John von Neumann Theory Prize winners Living people 1931 births University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Fellows of the American Statistical Association Fellows of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences Knox College (Illinois) alumni