Edward James Hannan (29 January 1921 – 7 January 1994) was an Australian

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

who was the co-discoverer of the

Hannan–Quinn information criterion In statistics, the Hannan–Quinn information criterion (HQC) is a criterion for model selection. It is an alternative to Akaike information criterion (AIC) and Bayesian information criterion (BIC). It is given as : \mathrm = -2 L_ + 2 k \ln(\ln(n ...

. He studied at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public university, public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state ...

and completed a PhD at the

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

under the supervision of Patrick A. P. Moran. For the majority of his working life he was attached the

. He was Professor of Statistics in the Institute of Advanced Studies 1971-1986, Professor of Statistics in the School of General Studies 1959-1971, and Fellow in Statistics 1954-1958. His research was in the field of time series analysis, both in statistics and econometrics. He is the author of four books, one with Manfred Deistler. The Statistical Society of Australia awarded him the Pitman Medal in recognition of his life's work. In 1970 he was elected to the

Australian Academy of Science The Australian Academy of Science was founded in 1954 by a group of distinguished Australians, including Australian Fellows of the Royal Society of London. The first president was Sir Mark Oliphant. The academy is modelled after the Royal Soci ...

. He also won the 1979

Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal The Thomas Ranken Lyle Medal is awarded at most every two years by the Australian Academy of Science to a mathematician or physicist for his or her outstanding research accomplishments.

of the

. Hannan had left school at the age of 15, becoming a bank clerk for

Commonwealth Bank The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), also known as Commonwealth Bank or simply CommBank, is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of fi ...

before entering the

Australian Army The Australian Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of Australia. It is a part of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), along with the Royal Australian Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force. The Army is commanded by the Chief of Army ...

in 1941 and seeing action as a lieutenant during the

New Guinea campaign The New Guinea campaign of the Pacific War lasted from January 1942 until the end of the war in August 1945. During the initial phase in early 1942, the Empire of Japan invaded the Territory of New Guinea on 23 January and Territory of Papua on ...

. A full account of his life and work is contained in the Biographical Memoirs of the Australian Academy of Science. Hannan is the namesake of the

Hannan Medal The Hannan Medal in the Mathematical Sciences is awarded every two years by the Australian Academy of Science to recognize achievements by Australians in the fields of pure mathematics, applied and computational mathematics, and statistical scienc ...

awarded by the Australian Academy of Science.

References

Australian statisticians 1994 deaths 1921 births Fellows of the Australian Academy of Science 20th-century Australian mathematicians Fellows of the Econometric Society {{statistician-stub