Leo Aria Goodman (August 7, 1928 – December 22, 2020) was an American

statistician A statistician is a person who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. It is common to combine statistical knowledge with expertise in other subjects, and statisticians may w ...

. He was known particularly for developing statistical methods for the

social science Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of s ...

s, including statistical methods for analyzing

categorical data In statistics, a categorical variable (also called qualitative variable) is a variable that can take on one of a limited, and usually fixed, number of possible values, assigning each individual or other unit of observation to a particular group or ...

and data from

statistical survey Survey methodology is "the study of survey methods". As a field of applied statistics concentrating on human-research surveys, survey methodology studies the sampling of individual units from a population and associated techniques of survey da ...

Education

Goodman was born in Brooklyn. He attended

Stuyvesant High School , motto_translation = For knowledge and wisdom , address = 345 Chambers Street , city = New York , state = New York , zipcode = 10282 , country ...

and he then went on to earn his AB degree ''summa cum laude'' from

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

in 1948, majoring in mathematics and sociology. He was class valedictorian. He moved to Princeton for postgraduate work in

mathematical statistics Mathematical statistics is the application of probability theory, a branch of mathematics, to statistics, as opposed to techniques for collecting statistical data. Specific mathematical techniques which are used for this include mathematical an ...

, receiving his masters and doctorate in 1950.

Work

Goodman began his career in 1950 at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

, where he would stay, save for a number of visiting professorships, until 1987. Since 1987, he has been Class of 1938 Professor in the Sociology Department and the Statistics Department 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 un ...

Awards and distinctions

He was elected as a

Fellow of the American Statistical Association Like many other academic professional societies, the American Statistical Association (ASA) uses the title of Fellow of the American Statistical Association as its highest honorary grade of membership. The number of new fellows per year is limited ...

in 1956, a member of the American Academy of Sciences in 1973, a member of the United States

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

in 1974, and a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 1976.

Personal life and death

He was married to Ann Davidow; the marriage ended in divorce. He and his ex-wife had two children and were godparents to

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, '' Th ...

's first child,

Frieda Hughes Frieda Rebecca Hughes (born 1 April 1960) is an English-Australian poet and painter. She has published seven children's books, four poetry collections and one short story and has had many exhibitions. Family and personal life Hughes is the daug ...

. Goodman died from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quick ...

during the

COVID-19 pandemic in California Ten of the first twenty confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States occurred in California, the first of which was confirmed on January 26, 2020. All of the early confirmed cases were persons who had recently travelled to China, as testing wa ...

.‘A giant in his field’: UC Berkeley professor emeritus Leo Goodman dies at 92
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References

External links

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Leo Goodman in Google Scholar
{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodman, Leo American statisticians Syracuse University alumni Princeton University alumni University of Chicago faculty University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty Fellows of the American Statistical Association Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Mathematicians from New York (state) 1928 births 2020 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in California Members of the American Philosophical Society