Stigler among new members of APS

A faculty member and two alumni have been elected to membership in the American Philosophical Society.

Elected to membership at the society’s April meeting were Stephen Stigler, the Ernest DeWitt Burton Distinguished Service Professor in Statistics and the College and Chairman of Statistics. Also elected were alumni William Hooke, who received his S.M. in 1966 and his Ph.D. in 1967, both in Geophysical Sciences; and Lubert Stryer, who received his S.B. in Biological Sciences in 1957. Stryer also received an honorary Doctor of Science degree from the University in 1992.

Stigler specializes in the history of statistics. He is the author of two books, The History of Statistics: The Measurement of Uncertainty Before 1900, and Statistics on the Table: The History of Statistical Concepts and Methods. He also was a 1998 recipient of the Llewellyn John and Harriet Manchester Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. Stigler served as president of the International Statistical Institute from 2003 to 2005.

Hooke is director of the American Meteorological Society’s Policy Program and chair of the Natural Disaster Roundtable of the National Academies. He formerly had served as director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s U.S. Weather Research Program Office and as chair of the Interagency Subcommittee for National Disaster Reduction of the National Science and Technology Council Committee on Environment and Natural Resources.

Stryer is the Winzer professor emeritus at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The author of Biochemistry, a widely used textbook, Stryer also developed new fluorescence techniques for studying biomolecules and cells. He also was the first president and scientific director of Affymax Research Institute, a drug discovery and development company, and the founder of Senomyx, a biotechnology company.

Election to the APS honors extraordinary accomplishments in all fields. The APS was founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin and is the nation’s oldest learned society. Today the society has 943 elected members.