I. Richard Savage, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus and Former Chair
Department of Statistics

I. Richard Savage (1925-2004), emeritus professor and former chair of the Department of Statistics at Yale was a world-renowned expert in the use of statistics in public affairs, such as AIDS diffusion, DNA fingerprinting, human rights and national defense.

A specialist in population censuses and related topics, Savage also focused his research on  modification of census counts, ability testing of handicapped people and social statistical systems. He was asked to participate in the first National Research Council study of undercount in the U.S. census.

Savage is one of a few mathematical statisticians of his generation who chose to pursue the application of statistical principles and concepts to problems of public policy. Savage began his research in a part of mathematical statistics known as nonparametric statistics, with a particular interest in rank orders. His first published paper in 1953 was a review of that literature. He made many important contributions to this field, among them the well-known Chernoff-Savage theorem, developed with Herman Chernoff.

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