Ingram Olkin (July 23, 1924 – April 28, 2016) was a professor emeritus and chair of

statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a s ...

and education at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

and the

Stanford Graduate School of Education The Stanford University Graduate School of Education (Stanford GSE or GSE) is one of the top education schools in the United States. It offers master's and doctoral programs in more than 25 areas of specialization, along with joint degrees with ...

. He is known for developing statistical analysis for evaluating policies, particularly in education, and for his contributions to

meta-analysis Meta-analysis is a method of synthesis of quantitative data from multiple independent studies addressing a common research question. An important part of this method involves computing a combined effect size across all of the studies. As such, th ...

statistics education Statistics education is the practice of teaching and learning of statistics, along with the associated scholarly research. Statistics is both a formal science and a practical theory of scientific inquiry, and both aspects are considered in stati ...

multivariate analysis 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 ...

, and

majorization In mathematics, majorization is a preorder on vector space, vectors of real numbers. For two such vectors, \mathbf,\ \mathbf \in \mathbb^n, we say that \mathbf weakly majorizes (or dominates) \mathbf from below, commonly denoted \mathbf \suc ...

theory.

Biography

Olkin was born in 1924 in

Waterbury, Connecticut Waterbury is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Waterbury had a population of 114,403 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 Census. The city is southwest of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford and northeast of New York City. Waterbury i ...

. He received a B.S. in mathematics at 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, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

, an M.A. from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, and his Ph.D. from the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the Public university, public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referre ...

. Olkin also studied with

Harold Hotelling Harold Hotelling (; September 29, 1895 – December 26, 1973) was an American mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist, known for Hotelling's law, Hotelling's lemma, and Hotelling's rule in economics, as well as Hotelling ...

. Olkin's advisor was S. N. Roy and his Ph.D. thesis was "On distribution problems in multivariate analysis" submitted in 1951. Olkin died from complications of

colorectal cancer Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the Colon (anatomy), colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include Lower gastrointestinal ...

at his home in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

on April 28, 2016, aged 91.

Honors and awards

Olkin was awarded the fourth biennial Elizabeth Scott Award in 1998 from the

American Statistical Association The American Statistical Association (ASA) is the main professional organization for statisticians and related professionals in the United States. It was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on November 27, 1839, and is the second-oldest continuous ...

for his achievements in supporting women in statistics. Of the 17 recipients thus far, he is the only man. 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 designation of ASA Fellow has been a sign ...

.View/Search Fellows of the ASA
, accessed 2016-07-23. In 1984, he was President of the

Institute of Mathematical Statistics The Institute of Mathematical Statistics is an international professional and scholarly society devoted to the development, dissemination, and application of statistics and probability. The Institute currently has about 4,000 members in all parts ...

. Olkin is a Guggenheim, Fulbright, and Lady Davis Fellow, with an honorary doctorate from

De Montfort University De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) is a public university in the city of Leicester, England. It was established in accordance with the Further and Higher Education Act 1992, Further and Higher Education Act in 1992 as a degree awarding body ...

Publications and editing

Olkin has written many books including ''Statistical methods for meta-analysis'', ''Probability theory'', and ''Education in a Research University''. Olkin's coauthors include S. S. Shrikhande and Larry V. Hedges. Olkin has written two books with Albert W. Marshall, ''Inequalities: Theory of

Majorization In mathematics, majorization is a preorder on vector space, vectors of real numbers. For two such vectors, \mathbf,\ \mathbf \in \mathbb^n, we say that \mathbf weakly majorizes (or dominates) \mathbf from below, commonly denoted \mathbf \suc ...

and its Applications'' (1979) and '' Life distributions: Structure of nonparametric, semiparametric, and parametric families'' (2007). In

nonparametric statistics Nonparametric statistics is a type of statistical analysis that makes minimal assumptions about the underlying distribution of the data being studied. Often these models are infinite-dimensional, rather than finite dimensional, as in parametric s ...

and

decision theory Decision theory or the theory of rational choice is a branch of probability theory, probability, economics, and analytic philosophy that uses expected utility and probabilities, probability to model how individuals would behave Rationality, ratio ...

, Olkin wrote ''Selecting and ordering populations: A new statistical methodology'' with Jean Dickinson Gibbons and Milton Sobel (1977, 1999). Ingram was Editor of the ''Annals of Mathematical Statistics'' and served as the first editor of the ''

Annals of Statistics The ''Annals of Statistics'' is a peer-reviewed statistics journal published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. It was started in 1973 as a continuation in part of the '' Annals of Mathematical Statistics (1930)'', which was split into ...

,'' both published by the

. He was a primary force in the founding of the '' Journal of Educational Statistics,'' which is published with the

. Olkin was also an editor with the mathematics journal, ''Linear Algebra and its Applications'', and has been active in supporting a series of international conferences on

matrix theory In mathematics, a matrix (: matrices) is a rectangular array or table of numbers, symbols, or expressions, with elements or entries arranged in rows and columns, which is used to represent a mathematical object or property of such an object. ...

linear algebra Linear algebra is the branch of mathematics concerning linear equations such as :a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n=b, linear maps such as :(x_1, \ldots, x_n) \mapsto a_1x_1+\cdots +a_nx_n, and their representations in vector spaces and through matrix (mathemat ...

, and

Bibliography

* * * * ''Inequalities: Theory of Majorization and Its Applications'' (2011) Albert W. Marshall, Ingram Olkin, Barry Arnold, Springer, * ''Inequalities: Theory of Majorization and Its Applications'' (1979) Albert W. Marshall, Ingram Olkin, Academic Press, * "A Guide to Probability Theory and Application" (1973), with L. Gleser and C. Derman, Holt, Rinehart and Winston. * "Probability Models and Application" (1994), with L. Gleser and C. Derman, Prentice Hall.
A tribute to Marshall and Olkin's book "Inequalities: Theory of Majorization and its Applications"

References

External links