Rita B. Zemach (née Dresner; April 3, 1926 – June 8, 2015) was an American statistician who worked for the Michigan Department of Public Health, and helped promote women in statistics.

Early life and education

Rita Dresner started her undergraduate studies at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, but transferred to

Barnard College Barnard College is a Private college, private Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college affiliated with Columbia University in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a grou ...

in her junior year. At Barnard, she became a member of the editorial staff of the ''Barnard Bulletin'', the school newspaper. She graduated from Barnard in 1947.

Statistics career

As Rita Zemach, she became an elected member 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 1961, and earned her Ph.D. in statistics in 1965 from

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State or MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan, United States. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State o ...

. Her dissertation, supervised by

Esther Seiden Esther Seiden (; March 9, 1908 – June 3, 2014) was a mathematical statistician known for her research on the design of experiments and combinatorial design theory. In the study of finite geometry, she introduced the concept of the complement of ...

, was ''On Orthogonal Arrays of Strength Four and Their Applications''. She later published this work, "the first significant progress on

orthogonal array In mathematics, an orthogonal array (more specifically, a fixed-level orthogonal array) is a "table" (array) whose entries come from a fixed finite set of symbols (for example, ), arranged in such a way that there is an integer ''t'' so that for ev ...

s of strength 4", with Seiden in the ''

Annals of Mathematical Statistics The ''Annals of Mathematical Statistics'' was a peer-reviewed statistics journal published by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics from 1930 to 1972. It was superseded by the '' Annals of Statistics'' and the '' Annals of Probability''. In 1 ...

''. Her later research concerned more applied areas of statistics, in health and

resource allocation In economics, resource allocation is the assignment of available resources to various uses. In the context of an entire economy, resources can be allocated by various means, such as markets, or planning. In project management, resource allocatio ...

. By 1979, she had become chief of statistics research and education for the Michigan Department of Public Health.

Recognition

Zemach 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 ...

in 1987.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zemach, Rita Dresner 1926 births 2015 deaths American statisticians American women statisticians Barnard College alumni Michigan State University alumni Fellows of the American Statistical Association Place of birth missing