Laurence Alan Baxter (28 February 1954, in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

– 8 November 1996, in

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated continental island in southeastern New York (state), New York state, extending into the Atlantic Ocean. It constitutes a significant share of the New York metropolitan area in both population and land are ...

) was

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

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 ...

at the

State University of New York at Stony Brook Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public university, public research university in Stony Brook, New York, United States, on Long Island. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is on ...

Early life

Baxter was born at the Bearstead Jewish Maternity Hospital,

Stoke Newington Stoke Newington is an area in the northwest part of the London Borough of Hackney, England. The area is northeast of Charing Cross. The Manor of Stoke Newington gave its name to Stoke Newington (parish), Stoke Newington, the ancient parish. S ...

. His family lived in

Ilford Ilford is a large List of areas of London, town in East London, England, northeast of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Redbridge, Ilford is within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London. It had a po ...

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

. He was educated at

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

(UCL).

Career

Baxter's first job (1975–1977) was at an insurance company. He then went to the

Central Electricity Generating Board The Central Electricity Generating Board (CEGB) was responsible for electricity generation, transmission and bulk sales in England and Wales from 1958 until privatisation of the electricity industry in the 1990s. It was established on 1 Januar ...

, where he researched ways to predict the available generator capacity given the incidence of breakdowns and the average time required for generator repairs. This work was accepted by UCL for a Ph.D. in 1980. Baxter was then offered a temporary post as a lecturer at the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

. The following year, he moved to the

(SUNY) where he was granted

tenure Tenure is a type of academic appointment that protects its holder from being fired or laid off except for cause, or under extraordinary circumstances such as financial exigency or program discontinuation. Academic tenure originated in the United ...

about ten years before his death. Leitmann (1997) reports that "Baxter was internationally renowned for his work in applied probability and reliability theory" and that he "published over 45 papers and did extensive consulting in this area". He further argues that the "results of his work on separately maintained components have been incorporated into a widely used AT&T Bell Laboratories software package for calculating various characteristics of system availability". Leitmann also notes that Baxter provided extensions to several classic theories in

reliability theory Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability is defined as the probability that a product, system, or service will perform its intended funct ...

naming these '' continuum structure functions (CSFs)''. Also that he researched air pollutions impact on mortality. Baxter conceived the idea for and was

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The editor-in-chief heads all departments of the organization and is held accoun ...

of the book series ''Stochastic Modeling'', published by

Chapman and Hall Chapman & Hall is an imprint owned by CRC Press, originally founded as a British publishing house in London in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman and William Hall. Chapman & Hall were publishers for Charles Dickens (from 1840 ...

from 1993. He was an editorial board member for ''Applied Probability Newsletter'', ''Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics'', the ''Journal of Mathematical Analysis and its Applications'', ''Naval Research Logistics'' and the ''International Journal of Operations and Quantitative Management''. SUNY established the annual Laurence Baxter Memorial Lecture, which is now given each April at Stony Brook.

Notes and references

{{DEFAULTSORT:Baxter, Laurence 1954 births 1996 deaths Jewish British scientists English statisticians 20th-century English mathematicians People educated at Ilford County High School Alumni of University College London People from Ilford Stony Brook University faculty 20th-century English Jews