Donald St. P. Richards (born 1955, in

Mandeville, Jamaica Mandeville () is the capital and largest town in the Manchester Parish, parish of Manchester in the county of Middlesex, Jamaica. In 2005, the town had an estimated population of 50,000, and including the immediate suburbs within a radius of t ...

) is an American statistician conducting research on

multivariate statistics Multivariate statistics is a subdivision of statistics encompassing the simultaneous observation and analysis of more than one outcome variable, i.e., '' multivariate random variables''. Multivariate statistics concerns understanding the differ ...

, zonal polynomials, distance correlation, total positivity, and hypergeometric functions of matrix argument. He currently serves as a distinguished professor of statistics at the

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

, and is a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and a Fellow of the

American Mathematical Society The American Mathematical Society (AMS) is an association of professional mathematicians dedicated to the interests of mathematical research and scholarship, and serves the national and international community through its publications, meetings, ...

. Richards obtained his PhD in 1978 at the

University of the West Indies The University of the West Indies (UWI), originally University College of the West Indies, is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 18 English-speaking countries and territories in t ...

, where the statistician Rameshwar D. Gupta was his doctoral advisor. In 1999, he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. In 2012, he was elected a Fellow of the

Personal life

Richards became an American citizen in 1990. He was married to Mercedes Richards, an American Jamaican-born professor of astronomy and astrophysics, until her death in 2016.

References

External links

* 1955 births Living people American statisticians Jamaican statisticians Pennsylvania State University faculty Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the American Mathematical Society {{Statistician-stub