David Blackwell (born April 24 1919, Centralia, Illinois) is Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is one of the eponyms of the Rao–Blackwell theorem. He was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1935, aged 16, David Blackwell entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His interest in mathematics continued to grow. While at the Institute, Blackwell started to look for academic appointments. He wrote letters of application to 104 "black colleges" to see if any post was available. One might see the fact that he concentrated on obtaining a job at a black College as a sign that he was aware of the powerful discrimination against African Americans, but he has later explained that this was not quite how he saw it; rather he simply accepted that a black teacher would be limited to teach at black colleges.
He sought a position at the University of California at Berkeley, however, and was interviewed by Jerzy Neyman for the post. Neyman strongly supported his appointment but others opposed it. He was offered a post at Southern University at Baton Rouge which he held in 1942-43, followed by a year as an Instructor at Clark College in Atlanta. He moved to Howard University in 1946 to become an associate professor, and became head of the Mathematics Department the following year. He remained at Howard until 1954 when he taught at UC Berkeley as a visiting professor. He was hired as a professor of statistics in 1955.
References
External links
Dr. David Blackwell Biography Packet (5.21MB) provided by the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Friday July 25, 2008 at 11:25:49 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
David Blackwell (born April 24 1919, Centralia, Illinois) is Professor Emeritus of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley, and is one of the eponyms of the Rao–Blackwell theorem. He was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.
In 1935, aged 16, David Blackwell entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His interest in mathematics continued to grow. While at the Institute, Blackwell started to look for academic appointments. He wrote letters of application to 104 "black colleges" to see if any post was available. One might see the fact that he concentrated on obtaining a job at a black College as a sign that he was aware of the powerful discrimination against African Americans, but he has later explained that this was not quite how he saw it; rather he simply accepted that a black teacher would be limited to teach at black colleges.
He sought a position at the University of California at Berkeley, however, and was interviewed by Jerzy Neyman for the post. Neyman strongly supported his appointment but others opposed it. He was offered a post at Southern University at Baton Rouge which he held in 1942-43, followed by a year as an Instructor at Clark College in Atlanta. He moved to Howard University in 1946 to become an associate professor, and became head of the Mathematics Department the following year. He remained at Howard until 1954 when he taught at UC Berkeley as a visiting professor. He was hired as a professor of statistics in 1955.
References
External links
Dr. David Blackwell Biography Packet (5.21MB) provided by the Department of Statistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Friday July 25, 2008 at 11:25:49 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
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