The Chicago Chapter of the American Statistical Association has named the University of Chicago's David Wallace as 2007-2008 Statistician of the Year.
Wallace was selected as the chapter's Statistician of the Year by a vote of past honorees, all of whom are internationally renowned members of the statistical community.
A Professor Emeritus in Statistics at the University of Chicago, Wallace was co-author of the 1964 book, Inference and Disputed Authorship: The Federalist. In the book, Wallace and co-author Frederick Mosteller used Bayesian statistical techniques to find and assess evidence of authorship in the 77 Federalist papers. These essays, published in New York newspapers in 1787 and 1788 under the pseudonym "Publius," argue for ratification of the Constitution.
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay were known to have written all these essays, but the authorship of 12 had remained in dispute. Using the word frequency of filler words, Mosteller and Wallace found strong evidence that the disputed papers matched the known writings of Madison and not Hamilton or Jay.
"Bayesian methods are now a characteristic mark of current statistical research and the authors' contribution in this field will have an enduring effect," said a 1966 review of Wallace and Mosteller's book, published in Review of the International Statistical Institute.
Wallace joined the Chicago faculty in 1954, and is an elected fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics and the American Statistical Association.
—Prof. Chuan He
