Martin Bradbury Wilk, (18 December 1922 – 19 February 2013) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

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 ...

, academic, and the former Chief Statistician of Canada. In 1965, together with Samuel Shapiro, he developed the Shapiro–Wilk test, which can indicate whether a sample of numbers would be unusual if it came from a

Gaussian distribution In statistics, a normal distribution or Gaussian distribution is a type of continuous probability distribution for a real-valued random variable. The general form of its probability density function is : f(x) = \frac e^ The parameter \mu ...

. With

Ramanathan Gnanadesikan Ramanathan Gnanadesikan (2 November 1932 – 6 July 2015) was an Indian statistician, known for his work in multivariate data analysis and leadership in the field. He received his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina and headed research g ...

he developed a number of important graphical techniques for data analysis, including the Q–Q plot and P–P plot.

Education and career

Born in

Montreal, Quebec Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple-pe ...

, he received a

bachelor of engineering A Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BSE) is an academic undergraduate degree awarded to a student after three to five years of studying engineering at an accredited college or university. In the UK, a Ba ...

degree in chemical engineering from

McGill University McGill University (french: link=no, Université McGill) is an English-language public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter granted by King George IV,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill Univer ...

in 1945. From 1945 to 1950, he was a Research Chemical Engineer on the Atomic Energy Project at the

National Research Council of Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; french: Conseil national de recherches Canada) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research & development. It is the largest federal research ...

. From 1951 to 1955, he was a Research Associate, Instructor, and Assistant Professor at

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of th ...

, where he received a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast t ...

in Statistics in 1953 and a Ph.D. in Statistics in 1955 under the supervision of

Oscar Kempthorne Oscar Kempthorne (January 31, 1919 – November 15, 2000) was a British statistician and geneticist known for his research on randomization-analysis and the design of experiments, which had wide influence on research in agriculture, genetics, ...

. From 1955 to 1957, he was a Research Associate and Assistant Director of the Statistical Techniques Research Group at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. From 1959 to 1963, he was a Professor and Director of Research in Statistics at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

. In 1956, he joined Bell Telephone Laboratories and in 1970 joined American Telephone and Telegraph Company. From 1976 to 1980, he was the Assistant Vice President-Director of Corporate Planning. From 1980 to 1985, he was the Chief Statistician of Canada. In 1981, he was appointed an Adjunct Professor of Statistics at

Carleton University Carleton University is an English-language public research university in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1942 as Carleton College, the institution originally operated as a private, non-denominational evening college to serve returning Wo ...

. In 1962 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 1999, he was made an Officer of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the cen ...

for his "insightful guidance on important matters related to our country's national statistical system".

References

* *
A conversation with Martin Bradbury Wilk
, C. Genest & G. Brackstone, ''Statistical Science'', Vol. 25, No. 2. (May, 2010), pp. 258–272. {{DEFAULTSORT:Wilk, Martin 1922 births 2013 deaths Canadian civil servants Carleton University faculty Officers of the Order of Canada McGill University Faculty of Engineering alumni People from Montreal Rutgers University faculty Canadian statisticians Iowa State University faculty Presidents of the Statistical Society of Canada Fellows of the American Statistical Association

Education and career

See also

References