Jeffrey Seth Rosenthal (born October 13, 1967 in Scarborough,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

) is a Canadian

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 nonfiction author. He is a professor in the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institu ...

's Department of Statistics, cross-appointed with

Department of Mathematics Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

Education and career

Rosenthal graduated from

Woburn Collegiate Institute Woburn Collegiate Institute (Woburn CI, WCI, or Woburn) is a non-semestered, English-language public secondary school on Ellesmere Road in the Woburn neighbourhood of the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada operated by the Toront ...

in 1984, received his B.Sc. (in mathematics, physics, and computer science) from the

in 1988, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics ("Rates of Convergence for Gibbs Sampler and Other Markov Chains") from

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 ...

in 1992, supervised by

Persi Diaconis Persi Warren Diaconis (; born January 31, 1945) is an American mathematician of Greek descent and former professional magician. He is the Mary V. Sunseri Professor of Statistics and Mathematics at Stanford University. He is particularly know ...

. He was an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

from 1992 to 1993. Rosenthal began his career in the Department of Statistics at the University of Toronto as an assistant professor in 1993, became an associate professor in 1997, and took on his current () position as full professor in 2000. Rosenthal has written numerous research papers about the theory of

Markov chain Monte Carlo In statistics, Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods comprise a class of algorithms for sampling from a probability distribution. By constructing a Markov chain that has the desired distribution as its equilibrium distribution, one can obtain ...

and other statistical computation

algorithms In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...

, many joint with Gareth O. Roberts.

Public engagements

In 2005 Rosenthal wrote a book for the general public, ''Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities'', which was a bestseller in Canada and has been published in ten languages. He has also written a graduate textbook on probability theory and co-authored an undergraduate textbook on probability and statistics. He has been interviewed by the media about such diverse topics as crime statistics, pedestrian deaths, gambling probabilities, and television game shows, and has appeared on '' William Shatner's Weird or What?''. In 2006, Rosenthal did the statistical analysis used by the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (french: Société Radio-Canada), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a federal Crown corporation that receives funding from the governme ...

television

news magazine A news magazine is a typed, printed, and published magazine, radio or television program, usually published weekly, consisting of articles about current events. News magazines generally discuss stories, in greater depth than do newspapers or n ...

'' The Fifth Estate'' to expose the Ontario lottery retailer fraud scandal, which was debated in the

provincial legislature. In 2010 his research with Albert H. Yoon about the

U.S. Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point ...

was quoted in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. He has also written about the

Monty Hall problem The Monty Hall problem is a brain teaser, in the form of a probability puzzle, loosely based on the American television game show ''Let's Make a Deal'' and named after its original host, Monty Hall. The problem was originally posed (and solved) ...

Honors and awards

Rosenthal received the CRM- SSC Prize in 2006, the

COPSS Presidents' Award The COPSS Presidents' Award is given annually by the Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies to a young statistician in recognition of outstanding contributions to the profession of statistics. The COPSS Presidents' Award is generall ...

in 2007, the

Statistical Society of Canada The Statistical Society of Canada (SSC) (french: Société statistique du Canada) is a professional organization whose mission is to promote the use and development of statistics and probability. Its objectives are * to make the general public a ...

Gold Medal in 2013, and a Faculty of Arts & Science Outstanding Teaching Award in 1998. He was elected a Fellow 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 ...

in 2005, and of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012.

Personal life

Rosenthal's father Peter Rosenthal and mother Helen Stephanie Rosenthal (1942 – 2017) are both math professors at the

. Besides his research, Rosenthal performs

music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

and

improvisational comedy Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, a ...

, including at The Bad Dog Theatre Company.

Bibliography

* * * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosenthal, Jeffrey S. 1967 births Canadian statisticians Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Harvard University alumni Living people People from Scarborough, Toronto University of Toronto faculty University of Toronto alumni University of Minnesota faculty 21st-century Canadian mathematicians Probability theorists