William Gordon Hunter, or Bill Hunter, (27 March 1937 – 29 December 1986) was a statistician at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

. He was co-author of the classic book ''Statistics for Experimenters'', and co-founder of the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement with

George E. P. Box George Edward Pelham Box (18 October 1919 – 28 March 2013) was a British statistician, who worked in the areas of quality control, time-series analysis, design of experiments, and Bayesian inference. He has been called "one of the gre ...

. Hunter was born March 27, 1937, in

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is a Administrative divisions of New York (state), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York and county seat of Erie County, New York, Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of ...

. In 1959 he received a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Medieval Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six years ...

from

Princeton Princeton University is a private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the Unit ...

and in 1960 a

master's A master's degree (from Latin ) is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional prac ...

from the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

in chemical engineering. He then became the first doctoral student at the new department of statistics at the

founded by

George Box George Edward Pelham Box (18 October 1919 – 28 March 2013) was a British statistician, who worked in the areas of quality control, time-series analysis, design of experiments, and Bayesian inference. He has been called "one of the gre ...

. He contributed to the book ''Statistics for Experimenters'' by

Box A box (plural: boxes) is a container with rigid sides used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides (typically rectangular prisms). Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or v ...

, William Hunter, and Stuart Hunter (no relation to William Hunter). He founded the Statistics Division of the

American Society for Quality The American Society for Quality (ASQ), formerly the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC), is a society of quality professionals, with more than 30,000 members, in more than 140 countries. History ASQC was established on 16 February ...

and the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

. The Statistics Division of the

gives an annual award called the William G. Hunter Award. According to Box, " unterwanted to make a difference in the lives of less fortunate people, and he and his family spent extended periods of time helping

third world The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

countries." Hunter taught in Singapore for a year and half and Nigeria for a year, both in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, before China allowed in many foreign experts, he spent a summer lecturing there. He helped build Singapore's quality movement. Hunter was a leader in the effort to adopt the Deming system of Profound Knowledge and related ideas in the public sector. He contributed to Deming's ''Out of the Crisis'', relating how the city of Madison applied Deming's ideas to a public sector organization. He was a fellow 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

American Association for the Advancement of Science The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is a United States–based international nonprofit with the stated mission of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsib ...

, and the American Society for Quality Control. From 1963 to 1983 he was an associate editor of ''Technometrics''. He was the chairman of the Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences of the American Statistical Association and also served on that organization's board of directors. He served on boards for the National Research Council of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

and the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American Nonprofit organization, nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. It is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), along with the National Academ ...

. Hunter died of cancer on December 29, 1986, at the age of 49.

Selected publications

* Box, G.E.P, Hunter, J.S., Hunter, W.G. ''Statistics for Experimenters'' * Hunter, W.G. ''Managing our way to economic success: two untapped resources'' (1986) * Hill, W.J, Hunter, W.G, Duncan, J.W. ''The next 25 Years in statistics'' (1986) * Hunter, W.G, O'Neill, J, Wallen, C. ''Doing more with less in the public sector: a progress report from Madison, Wisconsin'' (1986) * Steinberg, D.M, Hunter, W.G. ''Experimental design: review and comment'' (1984) * Hunter, W.G, Hill, W.J. ''Design of experiments for subsets of parameters'' (1973) * Hill, W.J, Hunter, W.G. ''Response surface methodology: a review'' (1966) * Draper, N.R, Hunter, W.G. ''Transformation: some examples revisited'' (1966) * Hill, W.J, Hunter, W.G. ''Design of experiments for model discrimination in multiresponse situations'' (1966) * Box, G.E.P, Hunter, W.G. ''The experimental study of physical mechanisms'' (1965)

References

External links

Web site by his sonAssessment of his life
by

Statistics for ExperimentersObituary
(starting on page 5)
Hunter Award presented by the Statistics Division of the American Society for Quality
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, William 1937 births 1986 deaths Scientists from Buffalo, New York University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Princeton University alumni University of Illinois alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni American statisticians Mathematicians from New York (state)