Susan Fera Assmann (June 26, 1956 – May 30, 2020) was an American mathematician and statistician who published highly cited research on subgroup analysis and on the use of

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for treating heart failure.

Early life, education, and career

Assmann is originally from

Princeton, New Jersey The Municipality of Princeton is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, Borough of Princeton and Pri ...

, where she was born on June 26, 1956. Her father, Frederick Fera Assmann (1915–2004) was a chemical engineer for the US Army and Thiokol Chemical Corporation; her mother, Mary Assmann (died 2010), was a science teacher at

The Pennington School The Pennington School is an independent, coeducational college preparatory school for day and boarding students located in Pennington, Mercer County, New Jersey. The school operates for students in sixth through twelfth grades. The Head of S ...

. In her doctoral dissertation, Susan Assmann writes that her interest in mathematics "was sparked by the 'interesting test' which constituted part of the application for entrance to the Hampshire College Summer Studies in Mathematics program", a summer program for high school mathematics students. She was the 1974 valedictorian at Hopewell Valley Central High School in Pennington, New Jersey, and a 1978

summa cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

graduate of

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College ( ) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, Dartmouth is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the America ...

. She completed a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1983 at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

, with the dissertation ''Problems in Discrete and Applied Mathematics'' supervised by

Daniel Kleitman Daniel J. Kleitman (born October 4, 1934)article availableon Douglas West (mathematician), Douglas West's web page, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign)."Kleitman, Daniel J.," in: ''Who's Who in Frontier Science and Technology'', 1, 1984, ...

. Through her joint publications with Kleitman on problems including the bin covering problem, she has

Erdős number The Erdős number () describes the "collaborative distance" between mathematician Paul Erdős and another person, as measured by authorship of mathematical papers. The same principle has been applied in other fields where a particular individual ...

2. After continuing in academia as a mathematics professor at the

University of Massachusetts Lowell The University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell and UML) is a Public university, public research university in Lowell, Massachusetts, with a satellite campus in Haverhill, Massachusetts. It is the northernmost member of the University of M ...

and Regis College (Massachusetts), Assmann came to work for the New England Research Institute (later known as HealthCore), where she continued as a principal statistician for nearly 26 years. Supporting the corresponding shift in her research interests, she received a master's degree in

biostatistics Biostatistics (also known as biometry) is a branch of statistics that applies 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 experimen ...

from the School of Public Health & Health Sciences at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

in 1994.

Personal life

Assmann married Jeffrey Del Papa, a private equity manager. Her interests included

change ringing Change ringing is the art of ringing a set of tuning (music), tuned bell (instrument), bells in a tightly controlled manner to produce precise variations in their successive striking sequences, known as "changes". This can be by method ringing in ...

and early

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

music. Assmann died of cancer on May 30, 2020.

Selected publications

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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Assmann, Susan 1956 births 2020 deaths American mathematicians American women mathematicians American statisticians American women statisticians Dartmouth College alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni University of Massachusetts Lowell faculty Regis College (Massachusetts) University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni