Mosteller, Frederick

(b. 1916). Ph.D., M.A., Princeton University; M.S., B.S., Carnegie Institute of Technology.

Mosteller is Roger I. Lee Professor of Mathematical Statistics and Professor Emeritus of Statistics at Harvard University. He has chaired the Departments of Statistics, Biostatistics, Social Relations, and Health Policy and Management at Harvard University, making him the only person in Harvard's history to serve as chair of four different departments. He directs the Center for Evaluation of the Initiatives [Page 261]for Children Project at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he was named a Fellow in 1954. He is also a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, American Statistical Association, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society for Quality Control, American Sociological Association, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.

He is the author of more than 340 journal articles concerning mathematics, statistics, psychology, sociology, epidemiology, and education, and he has written, edited, or contributed to more than 60 books, the most recent of which is titled Evidence Matters: Randomized Trials in Education Research (edited with Robert Boruch). Mosteller has served on the editorial boards of a dozen journals, including Journal of the American Statistical Association, Psychological Review, and Science. He has also held the office of President at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Psychometric Society, and the International Statistical Institute. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Russell Sage Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and American Medical Review Research Center, as well as being a member of the Board of Trustees of the National Opinion Research Center and the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

He has received numerous honors, including three honorary doctor of science degrees (Chicago, Carnegie Mellon, and Wesleyan Universities), an honorary doctor of social science (Yale), and an honorary doctor of laws (Harvard). He is the recipient of numerous prizes and awards, including the American Statistical Association's Founders Award, the Marvin Zelen Leadership Award in the Statistical Sciences, the Lifetime Membership Award from the American Psychological Association, and the 1978 Alva and Gunnar Myrdal Science Award from the American Evaluation Association.