Herman Chernoff (born July 1, 1923) is an American applied mathematician,

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

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate ca ...

. He was formerly a professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Stanford, and MIT, currently emeritus at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Early life and education

Herman Chernoff's parents were Pauline and Max Chernoff, Jewish immigrants from

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...

. He studied at Townsend Harris High School and earned a B.S. in mathematics from the

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a public university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York City. Founded in 1847, Cit ...

in 1943. He attended graduate school at Brown University, earning an M.Sc. in

applied mathematics Applied mathematics is the application of mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a combination of mathemat ...

in 1945, and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics in 1948 under the supervision of Abraham Wald.

Recognition

Chernoff became a fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, ...

in 1974, and was elected to the

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 1980. In 1987 he was selected for the

Wilks Memorial Award The Wilks Memorial Award is awarded by the American Statistical Association to recognize outstanding contributions to statistics. It was established in 1964 and is awarded yearly. It is named in memory of the statistician Samuel S. Wilks. The awa ...

by the American Statistical Association, and in 2012 he was made an inaugural 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 ...

.List of Fellows of the American Mathematical Society
retrieved 2012-11-10

References

MathSciNet MathSciNet is a searchable online bibliographic database created by the American Mathematical Society in 1996. It contains all of the contents of the journal '' Mathematical Reviews'' (MR) since 1940 along with an extensive author database, links ...

.
Chernoff's profile
on Mathematics Genealogy.
Chernoff's author profile
on

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

. 1923 births Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American statisticians 21st-century American physicists Harvard University faculty Presidents of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the American Statistical Association Brown University alumni Fellows of the American Mathematical Society Jewish American scientists Townsend Harris High School alumni Mathematicians from New York (state) 21st-century American Jews {{US-statistician-stub

Early life and education

Recognition

See also

References

External links