Rita B. Zemach (née Dresner, April 3, 1926 – June 8, 2015) was an American statistician who worked for the

Michigan Department of Public Health The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) is a principal department of state of Michigan, headquartered in Lansing, that provides public assistance, child and family welfare services, and oversees health policy and management. ...

, and helped promote women in statistics.

Early life and education

Rita Dresner started her undergraduate studies at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

, but transferred to

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

in her junior year. At Barnard, she became a member of the editorial staff of the ''Barnard Bulletin'', the school newspaper. She graduated from Barnard in 1947.

Statistics career

As Rita Zemach, she became an elected member 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 ...

in 1961, and earned her Ph.D. in statistics in 1965 from

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

. Her dissertation, supervised by Esther Seiden, was ''On Orthogonal Arrays of Strength Four and Their Applications''. She later published this work, "the first significant progress on orthogonal arrays of strength 4", with Seiden in the ''Annals of Mathematical Statistics''. Her later research concerned more applied areas of statistics, in health and resource allocation. By 1979, she had become chief of statistics research and education for the Michigan Department of Public Health.

Recognition

Zemach was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1987.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zemach, Rita Dresner 1926 births 2015 deaths American statisticians Women statisticians Barnard College alumni Michigan State University alumni Fellows of the American Statistical Association Place of birth missing Place of death missing