William Gemmell Cochran, 70, of Orleans, an internationally known expert
on design and analysis of statistical studies and professsor of statistics
emeritus at Harvard, died March 29 at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.
Prof. Cochran was an influential reviewer of such controversial reports as
the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior and the National Bureau of Standards
Report on Battery Additives.
He served on the Surgeon General's Committee on Smoking and Health in the early 1960s when large statistical studies were begining to confirm the link between smoking and lung cancer and heart disease.
Born in Rutherglen, Scotland, Prof. Cochran studied at Glasgow and Cambridge universities. He first worked at the agricultural research station at Rothamsted, England.
He found that when people used their own judgments to choose samples of wheat shoots from fields, they picked shoots whose heights averaged greater than the average for the field. They tended to avoid shoots that were exceptionally tall or short. This work helped establish the importance of randomization in sample surveys and experiments.
Statistical experts admired his theoretical work because he published solutions to many practical problems of removing bias, estimating variability, or improving the efficiency of experiments.
Prof. Cochran went to work in 1939 at Iowa State College where he continued agricultural experiments.
During World War II, he worked with the Statistical Research Group of Princeton University on problems of naval warfare.
He spent several years in North Carolina where he helped to found the Institute of Statistics which spanned the major state universities.
He headed the department of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University 1949 to 1957, concentrating on medical and epidemiological experiments. From 1957 until he retired in 1976, Prof. Cochran was professor of statistics at the Harvard Department of Statistics, sometimes serving as chairman.
Although he had earned no doctoral degree himself, at every university where he taught he produced doctoral students in statistics. Many of these statisticians have become leaders in the field.
He served as chairman of the committee of advisers to the Bureau of the Census.
With Gertrude Cox, Prof. Cochran authored an important reference text on design of experiments in 1950. In 1953 he published Sampling Techniques.
His revision of Snedecor's Statistical Methods is regarded as the most widely cited reference text in the scientific literature. All these books have gone through several editions and been translated into foreign languages.
In more than 100 research papers he developed many ingenious techniques of statistical analysis and provided penetrating studies of pitfalls and their avoidance in experimental and observational studies.
Cochran made friends easily and traveled widely. His honors included the presidencies of of the International Statistical Institute, the American Statistical Assn., the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Biometric Society.
He was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1959 and elected to the National Academy of Science in 1974.
In 1967 he was awarded the SS Wilks Medal of the American Statistical Assn. for his many contributions to the design and analysis of experiment and their value for military research.
Prof. Cochran held honorary doctoral degrees from Glasgow and Johns Hopkins universities. Several hundred statisticians from the world over attended his retirement banquet at the Harvard Club in Boston in 1976.
He leaves his wife, Betty (Mitchell) Cochran; two daughters, Elizabeth Welsh of Ridgefield, Conn., and Teresa Cochran of East Lansing, Mich.; a son, Alexander Cochran of Boxford; a brother, Oliver Cochran of England, and five grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete and interment will be private.
Boston Globe Newspaper Mar 31, 1980
on design and analysis of statistical studies and professsor of statistics
emeritus at Harvard, died March 29 at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.
Prof. Cochran was an influential reviewer of such controversial reports as
the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior and the National Bureau of Standards
Report on Battery Additives.
He served on the Surgeon General's Committee on Smoking and Health in the early 1960s when large statistical studies were begining to confirm the link between smoking and lung cancer and heart disease.
Born in Rutherglen, Scotland, Prof. Cochran studied at Glasgow and Cambridge universities. He first worked at the agricultural research station at Rothamsted, England.
He found that when people used their own judgments to choose samples of wheat shoots from fields, they picked shoots whose heights averaged greater than the average for the field. They tended to avoid shoots that were exceptionally tall or short. This work helped establish the importance of randomization in sample surveys and experiments.
Statistical experts admired his theoretical work because he published solutions to many practical problems of removing bias, estimating variability, or improving the efficiency of experiments.
Prof. Cochran went to work in 1939 at Iowa State College where he continued agricultural experiments.
During World War II, he worked with the Statistical Research Group of Princeton University on problems of naval warfare.
He spent several years in North Carolina where he helped to found the Institute of Statistics which spanned the major state universities.
He headed the department of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University 1949 to 1957, concentrating on medical and epidemiological experiments. From 1957 until he retired in 1976, Prof. Cochran was professor of statistics at the Harvard Department of Statistics, sometimes serving as chairman.
Although he had earned no doctoral degree himself, at every university where he taught he produced doctoral students in statistics. Many of these statisticians have become leaders in the field.
He served as chairman of the committee of advisers to the Bureau of the Census.
With Gertrude Cox, Prof. Cochran authored an important reference text on design of experiments in 1950. In 1953 he published Sampling Techniques.
His revision of Snedecor's Statistical Methods is regarded as the most widely cited reference text in the scientific literature. All these books have gone through several editions and been translated into foreign languages.
In more than 100 research papers he developed many ingenious techniques of statistical analysis and provided penetrating studies of pitfalls and their avoidance in experimental and observational studies.
Cochran made friends easily and traveled widely. His honors included the presidencies of of the International Statistical Institute, the American Statistical Assn., the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Biometric Society.
He was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1959 and elected to the National Academy of Science in 1974.
In 1967 he was awarded the SS Wilks Medal of the American Statistical Assn. for his many contributions to the design and analysis of experiment and their value for military research.
Prof. Cochran held honorary doctoral degrees from Glasgow and Johns Hopkins universities. Several hundred statisticians from the world over attended his retirement banquet at the Harvard Club in Boston in 1976.
He leaves his wife, Betty (Mitchell) Cochran; two daughters, Elizabeth Welsh of Ridgefield, Conn., and Teresa Cochran of East Lansing, Mich.; a son, Alexander Cochran of Boxford; a brother, Oliver Cochran of England, and five grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete and interment will be private.
Boston Globe Newspaper Mar 31, 1980
William Gemmell Cochran, 70, of Orleans, an internationally known expert
on design and analysis of statistical studies and professsor of statistics
emeritus at Harvard, died March 29 at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.
Prof. Cochran was an influential reviewer of such controversial reports as
the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior and the National Bureau of Standards
Report on Battery Additives.
He served on the Surgeon General's Committee on Smoking and Health in the early 1960s when large statistical studies were begining to confirm the link between smoking and lung cancer and heart disease.
Born in Rutherglen, Scotland, Prof. Cochran studied at Glasgow and Cambridge universities. He first worked at the agricultural research station at Rothamsted, England.
He found that when people used their own judgments to choose samples of wheat shoots from fields, they picked shoots whose heights averaged greater than the average for the field. They tended to avoid shoots that were exceptionally tall or short. This work helped establish the importance of randomization in sample surveys and experiments.
Statistical experts admired his theoretical work because he published solutions to many practical problems of removing bias, estimating variability, or improving the efficiency of experiments.
Prof. Cochran went to work in 1939 at Iowa State College where he continued agricultural experiments.
During World War II, he worked with the Statistical Research Group of Princeton University on problems of naval warfare.
He spent several years in North Carolina where he helped to found the Institute of Statistics which spanned the major state universities.
He headed the department of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University 1949 to 1957, concentrating on medical and epidemiological experiments. From 1957 until he retired in 1976, Prof. Cochran was professor of statistics at the Harvard Department of Statistics, sometimes serving as chairman.
Although he had earned no doctoral degree himself, at every university where he taught he produced doctoral students in statistics. Many of these statisticians have become leaders in the field.
He served as chairman of the committee of advisers to the Bureau of the Census.
With Gertrude Cox, Prof. Cochran authored an important reference text on design of experiments in 1950. In 1953 he published Sampling Techniques.
His revision of Snedecor's Statistical Methods is regarded as the most widely cited reference text in the scientific literature. All these books have gone through several editions and been translated into foreign languages.
In more than 100 research papers he developed many ingenious techniques of statistical analysis and provided penetrating studies of pitfalls and their avoidance in experimental and observational studies.
Cochran made friends easily and traveled widely. His honors included the presidencies of of the International Statistical Institute, the American Statistical Assn., the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Biometric Society.
He was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1959 and elected to the National Academy of Science in 1974.
In 1967 he was awarded the SS Wilks Medal of the American Statistical Assn. for his many contributions to the design and analysis of experiment and their value for military research.
Prof. Cochran held honorary doctoral degrees from Glasgow and Johns Hopkins universities. Several hundred statisticians from the world over attended his retirement banquet at the Harvard Club in Boston in 1976.
He leaves his wife, Betty (Mitchell) Cochran; two daughters, Elizabeth Welsh of Ridgefield, Conn., and Teresa Cochran of East Lansing, Mich.; a son, Alexander Cochran of Boxford; a brother, Oliver Cochran of England, and five grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete and interment will be private.
Boston Globe Newspaper Mar 31, 1980
on design and analysis of statistical studies and professsor of statistics
emeritus at Harvard, died March 29 at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis.
Prof. Cochran was an influential reviewer of such controversial reports as
the Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior and the National Bureau of Standards
Report on Battery Additives.
He served on the Surgeon General's Committee on Smoking and Health in the early 1960s when large statistical studies were begining to confirm the link between smoking and lung cancer and heart disease.
Born in Rutherglen, Scotland, Prof. Cochran studied at Glasgow and Cambridge universities. He first worked at the agricultural research station at Rothamsted, England.
He found that when people used their own judgments to choose samples of wheat shoots from fields, they picked shoots whose heights averaged greater than the average for the field. They tended to avoid shoots that were exceptionally tall or short. This work helped establish the importance of randomization in sample surveys and experiments.
Statistical experts admired his theoretical work because he published solutions to many practical problems of removing bias, estimating variability, or improving the efficiency of experiments.
Prof. Cochran went to work in 1939 at Iowa State College where he continued agricultural experiments.
During World War II, he worked with the Statistical Research Group of Princeton University on problems of naval warfare.
He spent several years in North Carolina where he helped to found the Institute of Statistics which spanned the major state universities.
He headed the department of biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University 1949 to 1957, concentrating on medical and epidemiological experiments. From 1957 until he retired in 1976, Prof. Cochran was professor of statistics at the Harvard Department of Statistics, sometimes serving as chairman.
Although he had earned no doctoral degree himself, at every university where he taught he produced doctoral students in statistics. Many of these statisticians have become leaders in the field.
He served as chairman of the committee of advisers to the Bureau of the Census.
With Gertrude Cox, Prof. Cochran authored an important reference text on design of experiments in 1950. In 1953 he published Sampling Techniques.
His revision of Snedecor's Statistical Methods is regarded as the most widely cited reference text in the scientific literature. All these books have gone through several editions and been translated into foreign languages.
In more than 100 research papers he developed many ingenious techniques of statistical analysis and provided penetrating studies of pitfalls and their avoidance in experimental and observational studies.
Cochran made friends easily and traveled widely. His honors included the presidencies of of the International Statistical Institute, the American Statistical Assn., the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the Biometric Society.
He was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Statistical Society in 1959 and elected to the National Academy of Science in 1974.
In 1967 he was awarded the SS Wilks Medal of the American Statistical Assn. for his many contributions to the design and analysis of experiment and their value for military research.
Prof. Cochran held honorary doctoral degrees from Glasgow and Johns Hopkins universities. Several hundred statisticians from the world over attended his retirement banquet at the Harvard Club in Boston in 1976.
He leaves his wife, Betty (Mitchell) Cochran; two daughters, Elizabeth Welsh of Ridgefield, Conn., and Teresa Cochran of East Lansing, Mich.; a son, Alexander Cochran of Boxford; a brother, Oliver Cochran of England, and five grandchildren.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete and interment will be private.
Boston Globe Newspaper Mar 31, 1980
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