Norman Lloyd Johnson (9 January 1917,

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 ...

, England – 18 November 2004, Chapel Hill,

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

, United States) was a professor 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 author or editor of several standard reference works in statistics and

probability theory Probability theory or probability calculus is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous mathematical manner by expre ...

Education

Johnson attended Ilford County High School, and went on to

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 ...

, where he obtained a B.Sc. in mathematics 1936 and a B.Sc. and M.Sc. in statistics in 1937 and 1938.

Career

On qualification in 1938, Johnson was appointed Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Statistics at UCL. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, he served under his former Professor

Egon Pearson Egon Sharpe Pearson (11 August 1895 – 12 June 1980) was one of three children of Karl Pearson and Maria, née Sharpe, and, like his father, a British statistician. Career Pearson was educated at Winchester College and Trinity College ...

as an Experimental Officer with the

Ordnance Board The Board of Ordnance was a British government body. Established in the Tudor period, it had its headquarters in the Tower of London. Its primary responsibilities were 'to act as custodian of the lands, depots and forts required for the defence ...

. He returned to the Statistics Department at UCL in 1945 and stayed there until 1962, as Assistant Lecturer, Lecturer and then Reader. In 1948 he was awarded a Ph.D. in Statistics for his work on the Johnson system of frequency curves. In 1949 he became a Fellow of the

Institute of Actuaries The Institute of Actuaries was one of the two professional bodies which represented actuaries in the United Kingdom. The institute was based in England, while the other body, the Faculty of Actuaries, was based in Scotland. While the Institute a ...

. Two visiting appointments in the USA, at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

(UNC) in 1952–1953 and at

Case Institute of Technology Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a Private university, private research university in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It was established in 1967 by a merger between Western Reserve University and the Case Institute of Technology. Case ...

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–United States border, Canada–U.S. maritime border ...

, in 1960–1961, led to his permanent appointment as Professor in the Department of Statistics at UNC in 1962. He was Chairman 1971–1976 and officially retired in 1982, but continued to be active in scholarship and research as

Professor Emeritus ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retirement, retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". ...

almost until his death. UNC named a distinguished endowed chair in his honour. He expressed a wish to retire completely and return to live in Ilford, but never managed it.

Publications

He wrote, together with Samuel Kotz, a standard reference series, ''Distributions in Statistics''. This series has been described as of "virtually Biblical authority", a comment that he (a devout Christian) firmly rejected. He was editor-in-chief of the 10-volume ''

Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences The ''Encyclopedia of Statistical Sciences'' is an encyclopaedia of statistics published by John Wiley & Sons.

'', widely regarded as one of the most important reference works in statistical methodology. He also wrote several textbooks and about 180 papers. His book "Survival Models" was co-authored with his wife Regina Elandt Johnson, herself a professor of

biostatistics Biostatistics (also known as biometry) is a branch of statistics that applies statistical methods to a wide range of topics in biology. It encompasses the design of biological experiments, the collection and analysis of data from those experimen ...

Honours

He was honoured in numerous ways, including the Wilks Award of 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 ...

, the Shewhart Medal of the American Society for Quality Control and a D.Sc. degree from UCL.

References

*Campbell B. Read (2004) A Conversation with Norman L. Johnson, ''Statistical Science'', 19, 544–560
Project Euclid

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Johnson, Norman L. 1917 births 2004 deaths People educated at Ilford County High School Academics of University College London Alumni of University College London English statisticians 20th-century English mathematicians People from Ilford Fellows of the American Statistical Association American mathematical statisticians