Erling Sverdrup (23 February 1917 – 15 March 1994) was a

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

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 wor ...

and actuarial mathematician. He played an instrumental role in building up and modernising the fields of

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 ...

and actuarial science in Norway, primarily at the Department of Mathematics at the

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top univers ...

but also via his links to

Statistics Norway Statistics Norway ( no, Statistisk sentralbyrå, abbreviated to ''SSB'') is the Norwegian statistics bureau. It was established in 1876. Relying on a staff of about 1,000, Statistics Norway publish about 1,000 new statistical releases every ye ...

. During the

second world war World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Sverdrup was involved with the

cryptography Cryptography, or cryptology (from grc, , translit=kryptós "hidden, secret"; and ''graphein'', "to write", or ''-logia'', "study", respectively), is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of adve ...

part of the war efforts, specifically also with organising and recruiting other mathematicians to the Norwegian cryptography branch, spending part of this time in London. He completed his actuarial exams autumn 1945. He then became scientific assistant at the Insurance Mathematical Seminar at the University Oslo in 1948, where the education of actuaries was organised, after which he spent stipend years in the USA and completed his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper ''Piled Higher and Deeper'' (also known as ''PhD Comics''), is a newsp ...

there in 1952. In 1953 he was made a professor of insurance mathematics and mathematical statistics at the University of Oslo, a position he held until his retirement. In 1954, Sverdrup became an elected member of the

Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters ( no, Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi, DNVA) is a learned society based in Oslo, Norway. Its purpose is to support the advancement of science and scholarship in Norway. History The Royal Frederick Unive ...

. He was elected as an honorary member of the Norwegian Statistical Association and the Norwegian Association of Actuaries, for his role in establishing and strengthening actuarial education in Norway. In 1969 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 ...

.View/Search Fellows of the ASA
, accessed 2016-08-20. The

Sverdrup Prize The Sverdrup Prize (''Sverdrupprisen'') is a Norwegian honorary award concerning the fields of theoretical and applied statistics. History It was established in the memory of Erling Sverdrup (1917–1994) who was professor of mathematical statisti ...

was established in 2007 by the Norwegian Statistical Association, consisting of an award to a prominent statistician ("an eminent representative of the statistics profession") and a second award to a younger statistician who has authored or coauthored a high quality journal article, with these prizes to be awarded every second year. The four first recipients of the senior Sverdrup Prize have been

Dag Tjøstheim Dag Tjøstheim (born 19 September 1945) is a Norwegian statistician. He took the cand.real. degree at the University of Bergen in 1970, and the PhD degree at Princeton University. He then worked at NORSAR. He was appointed docent at the Norwegi ...

(2009),

Tore Schweder Tore Schweder (born 16 January 1943) is a Norwegian statistician and is a professor at the Department of Economics and at the ''Centre for Ecology and Evolutionary Synthesis'' at the University of Oslo. Schweder has worked with scientists in a num ...

(2011),

Nils Lid Hjort Nils Lid Hjort (born 12 January 1953) is a Norwegian statistician, who has been a professor of mathematical statistics at the University of Oslo since 1991. Hjort's research themes are varied, with particularly noteworthy contributions in the fie ...

(2013) and

Odd Aalen Odd Olai Aalen (born 6 May 1947, in Oslo Oslo ( , , or ; sma, Oslove) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city ...

(2015).

References

External links

Ø. Borgan: Sverdrup, Erling (1917–1994): Encyclopedia of Actuarial Sciences (eds. J.L. Teugels and B. Sundt), vol 3, pp. 1665-1666

E. Falk, G. Harbitz Jr., H. Haugland and A. Aamodt: Den Norske Aktuarforening 100 år, 2004

Twelve Contributions to a Tradition in Statistical and Actuarial Science: Festschrift to Erling Sverdrup (ed. R. Norberg)

The Sverdrup Prize
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sverdrup, Erling Norwegian statisticians Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters 1917 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American mathematicians Fellows of the American Statistical Association