Roger Lee Berger is an American statistician and professor, co-author of ''Statistical Inference'', first published in 1990 with collaborator

George Casella George Casella (January 22, 1951 – June 17, 2012) was a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Statistics at the University of Florida. He died from multiple myeloma. Academic career Casella completed his undergraduate education at For ...

.Berger, Roger. ''Bibliography'', September 2018
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Early life and education

Roger Lee Berger was born August 21, 1951 in rural northwest

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the ...

. His early interest in mathematics ripened as he attended the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

, switching from physics to mathematics with emphasis on

real analysis In mathematics, the branch of real analysis studies the behavior of real numbers, sequences and series of real numbers, and real functions. Some particular properties of real-valued sequences and functions that real analysis studies include converg ...

as an undergraduate. Graduating in 1973, he studied graduate statistics at

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...

, earning a master's degree in 1975 and a doctorate in 1977. Building on the work of his advisor Shanti Swarup Gupta in subset selection, Berger wrote ''Minimax, Admissible, and Gamma-Minimax Multiple Decision Rules'' to complete his doctoral studies.

University career and research

Berger's first professor appointment was at

Florida State University Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university in Tallahassee, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida. Founded in 1851, it is located on the oldest continuous site of higher education in the st ...

in 1977. Later, he served at

North Carolina State University North Carolina State University (NC State) is a public land-grant research university in Raleigh, North Carolina. Founded in 1887 and part of the University of North Carolina system, it is the largest university in the Carolinas. The universit ...

and then

Arizona State University Arizona State University (Arizona State or ASU) is a public research university in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, ASU is one of the largest public universities by enrollment in the ...

, where he retired in 2017. Throughout his career, he supervised eleven students in statistics on topics ranging from theory, such as exact hypothesis testing, more powerful tests with linear and elliptical constraints, to applied

biostatistics Biostatistics (also known as biometry) are the development and application of statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experime ...

. In 2003, Purdue deemed Berger a Distinguished Alumnus.

Friendship and collaboration with George Casella

Berger and

met at Purdue and became fast friends, studying statistics together. In 1983 at the Eastern North American Region (ENAR) conference of the

International Biometric Society The International Biometric Society (IBS) is an international professional and academic society promoting the development and application of statistical and mathematical theory and methods in the biosciences, including biostatistics. It sponsors ...

, Casella asked Berger to co-author a new master's level introductory text to

statistical inference Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to infer properties of an underlying probability distribution, distribution of probability.Upton, G., Cook, I. (2008) ''Oxford Dictionary of Statistics'', OUP. . Inferential statistical ...

, hoping to revise and improve Hogg and Craig's ''Introduction to Mathematical Statistics''. This led to the publication of ''Statistical Inference'' in 1990. They continued to publish papers together, touching on topics such as

generalized mean In mathematics, generalized means (or power mean or Hölder mean from Otto Hölder) are a family of functions for aggregating sets of numbers. These include as special cases the Pythagorean means (arithmetic, geometric, and harmonic means). De ...

s and the reconciliation of Bayesian and

frequentist Frequentist inference is a type of statistical inference based in frequentist probability, which treats “probability” in equivalent terms to “frequency” and draws conclusions from sample-data by means of emphasizing the frequency or pr ...

testing, until Casella's death in 2012.

Published works

*Casella, George, and Berger, Roger L. ''Statistical Inference'', Duxbury Press, Belmont, CA, 1990.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Roger Lee Living people 1951 births Academics from Kansas American statisticians University of Kansas alumni Purdue University alumni Florida State University faculty North Carolina State University faculty Arizona State University faculty Mathematics writers