Samuel Merrill III (born 1939) is an American

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, mathematical structure, structure, space, Mathematica ...

, social choice theorist, and

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

best known for his work on alternative

voting systems An electoral or voting system is a set of rules used to determine the results of an election. Electoral systems are used in politics to elect governments, while non-political elections may take place in business, nonprofit organizations and inf ...

, voter behavior, party competition, and

arbitration Arbitration is a formal method of dispute resolution involving a third party neutral who makes a binding decision. The third party neutral (the 'arbitrator', 'arbiter' or 'arbitral tribunal') renders the decision in the form of an 'arbitrati ...

. Merrill was raised in

Bogalusa Bogalusa ( ) is a city in Washington Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 12,232 at the 2010 census. In th2020 censusthe city reported a population of 10,659. It is the principal city of the Bogalusa Micropolitan Statistical Are ...

Louisiana Louisiana ( ; ; ) is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It borders Texas to the west, Arkansas to the north, and Mississippi to the east. Of the 50 U.S. states, it ranks 31st in area and 25 ...

. He received his bachelor's degree from

Tulane University The Tulane University of Louisiana (commonly referred to as Tulane University) is a private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by a cohort of medical doctors, it b ...

and his Ph.D. in

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

in 1965 from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

under C. E. Rickart with thesis ''Banach Spaces of Analytic Functions''. Merrill was a professor of mathematics and

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 ...

Wilkes University Wilkes University is a private university in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It has over 2,200 undergraduates and over 2,200 graduate students (both full and part-time). Wilkes was founded in 1933 as a satellite campus of Bucknell University, and bec ...

until he retired in 2004. Samuel Merrill is the author of three books on political science: *''Making Multicandidate Elections More Democratic'' (1988, Princeton University Press) *''A Unified Theory of Voting'' with

Bernard Grofman Bernard Norman Grofman (born December 2, 1944) is a political scientist at the University of California, Irvine. He is an expert on redistricting and has been a special master on several district map redrawings. From the University of Chicago he ...

(1999, Cambridge University Press) *''A Unified Theory of Party Competition'' with James Adams and Bernard Grofman (2005, Cambridge University Press)

References

External links

Wilkes University page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Merrill, Samuel 1939 births American political scientists Tulane University alumni Yale University alumni Wilkes University faculty People from Bogalusa, Louisiana Living people