Harvard Statistican Wins Prize

C. Frederick Mosteller, Harvard's Lee professor of mathematical statistics emeritus, will be named Statistician of the Year by the Boston chapter of the American Statistical Association (ASA) on Saturday, an ASA official said yesterday.

"As far as I'm concerned, he's the greatest living bio-statistician," said Thomas C. Chalmers, a visiting professor at the school of Public Health. "He is renowned throughout the world."

This is the first year the Boston chapter of ASA, the nation's oldest, has named a Statistician of the Year. The award "is mostly to honor him and show the recognition of his peers," said Jimmy Thomas Efird, the chapter's secretary.

The award does not have any monetary value, Efird said.

"It's very exciting for me to get the award," Mosteller said in an interview yesterday. "You know when you're not expecting anything much," he added.

Mosteller, who has published more than 250 articles and books, has received honorary degrees from Carnegie-Mellon, Chicago, Wesleyan and Yale Universities. He also helped prepare the landmark Kinsey report on human sexuality in the 1950s, and the Coleman report on educational opportunity in the 1960s.

Chalmers praised Mosteller for his ability to apply abstract statistical principals to real-world social problems.

"He has the ability to convert mathematical principles into public policy. He's got all the ivory-tower abilities, but he applies them to practical problems," Chalmers said.

Mosteller said he taught probability and statistics to students all across the country during the 1960s on NBC's "Continental Classroom" television program. In collaboration with David L. Wallace of the University of Chicago, he also used statistical techniques to determine that James Madison wrote several of the Federalist Papers, whose authorship had been disputed, he said.

Mosteller, 72, said he was not sure what he wanted to study in the future. "I've often wondered what I would do when I grew up, and I'm still looking forward to finding that out," he said.