David Blackwell
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| David Blackwell | |
 David Harold Blackwell
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| Born | April 24, 1919 Centralia, Illinois, United States |
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| Nationality | American |
| Fields | Mathematician |
| Institutions | University of California, Berkeley |
| Alma mater | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
| Doctoral advisor | Joseph Leo Doob |
| Known for | Rao–Blackwell theorem |
David Harold Blackwell (born April 24, 1919) born in Centralia, Illinois is Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is one of the eponyms of the Rao–Blackwell theorem. He was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.
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[edit] Career
In 1935, aged 16, Blackwell entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His interest in mathematics continued to grow. While at the Institute, Blackwell started to look for academic appointments. At age 22 he earned his first Ph.D. in mathematics. He wrote letters of application to 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities to see if any post was available; he felt at the time that a black teacher would be limited to teaching only at black colleges.[1] Later after 1966, more than a dozen universities including Harvard and Yale conferred honorary Ph.D.s to Blackwell.
He sought a position at the University of California at Berkeley, however, and was interviewed by Jerzy Neyman for the post. Neyman strongly supported his appointment but others had opposed it. He was offered a post at Southern University at Baton Rouge which he held in 1942-43, followed by a year as an Instructor at Clark College in Atlanta. He moved to Howard University in 1946 to become an associate professor, and became head of the Mathematics Department the following year. He remained at Howard until 1954 when he taught at UC Berkeley as a visiting professor. He was hired as a professor of statistics in 1955.
Blackwell was also a pioneer in textbook writing. Blackwell wrote one of the first Bayesian textbooks, his 1969 Basic Statistics.[2]
[edit] Honors - a few listed
Blackwell held several honors and memberships.
- President, Institute of Mathematical Statistics
- Honorary Fellow, Royal Statistical Society
- R. A. Fisher award
- The Berkely citation
[edit] References
- ^ David Blackwell Interview by Donald J. Albers. Dr. David Blackwell Biography Packet, p.29
- ^ Blackwell's Basic Statistics inspired the 1995 textbook Statistics: A Bayesian Approach by the biostatician Donald Berry.
[edit] External links
- Dr. David Blackwell Biography Packet (5.21MB) provided by the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
- David Blackwell's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project
- On Google scholar
- David Blackwell at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
