Stephen Mitchell Samuels (1938, Brooklyn – July 26, 2012, Indiana) was a statistician and mathematician, known for his work on the

secretary problem The secretary problem demonstrates a scenario involving optimal stopping theory For French translation, secover storyin the July issue of ''Pour la Science'' (2009). that is studied extensively in the fields of applied probability, statistics, an ...

and for the Samuels Conjecture involving a Chebyshev-type inequality for sums of

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

, non-negative

random variable A random variable (also called random quantity, aleatory variable, or stochastic variable) is a mathematical formalization of a quantity or object which depends on random events. It is a mapping or a function from possible outcomes (e.g., the p ...

s. After completing his undergraduate degree at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

, he became a graduate student at Stanford University. There he received his Ph.D. in 1964 with a thesis supervised by

Samuel Karlin Samuel Karlin (June 8, 1924 – December 18, 2007) was an American mathematician at Stanford University in the late 20th century. Biography Karlin was born in Janów, Poland and immigrated to Chicago as a child. Raised in an Orthodox Jewish hou ...

. Samuels joined in 1964 the faculty of

Purdue University Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and ...

and retired there in 2003 as professor emeritus of statistics and mathematics. He did research on various topics in probability theory and its applications, dynamic optimization, and disclosure risk assessment for statistical microdata.

Selected publications

* 1965 * 1966 * 1968 * 1974 * 1976 * 1977 * 1980 * 1981 * 1986 * 1987 * 1989 * 1990 * * 1992

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samuels, Stephen Mitchell 1938 births 2012 deaths Probability theorists 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American statisticians Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni Stanford University alumni Purdue University faculty