William Hunter (statistician)
William Gordon Hunter, or Bill Hunter, was a statistician at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was co-author of the classic book Statistics for Experimenters, and co-founder of the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement with Box.
Dr. Hunter was born March 27, 1937 in Buffalo, New York. He received a bachelor's degree from Princeton in 1959 and in 1960 a master's from the University of Illinois in chemical engineering. He then became the first doctoral student at the new department of statistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison founded by George Box.
He contributed to the book Statistics for Experimenters by Box, William Hunter, and Stuart Hunter (no relation to William Hunter). He founded the Statistics Division of the American Society for Quality and the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement in Madison, Wisconsin. The Statistics Division of the American Society for Quality gives an annual award called the William G. Hunter Award (link below).
According to Dr. Box, "He wanted to make a difference in the lives of less fortunate people, and he and his family spent extended periods of time helping third world countries." He taught in Singapore for a year and half and Nigeria for a year (both in the 1970's). He spent a summer lecturing in China (in the early 1980's before China was allowing in many foreign experts). [1] He helped build Singapore's quality movement and wrote an article "Building a Quality Movement" (in developing countries) with E. Chacko, August, 1972, Quality Progress.
Dr. 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 Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Society for Quality Control. He was an Associate Editor of Technometrics from 1963 to 1983. He has served as the chairman of the Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences of the American Statistical Association. Dr. Hunter also served on the Board of Directors of the American Statistical Association. He served on boards for the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. [2]
Hunter died of cancer on December 29, 1986 at the age of 49.
References
- ^ "William G. Hunter: An innovator and Catalyst for Quality Improvement by George Box" (PDF). speech by George Box. Retrieved 4 February 2012.
- ^ "online cv". online cv. Retrieved 4 February 2012.
External links
- Web site by his son
- Assessment of his life by George Box
- Statistics for Experimenters
- Obituary (starting on page 5)
- Hunter Award presented by the Statistics Division of the American Society for Quality
- Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement
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