Siegmund, David O.

Professor of Statistics Stanford University

Education:
PhD, Columbia, 1966

Honors:
Member, National Academy of Sciences (NAS)  2002
 

David O. Siegmund, professor of statistics, works at the interface between probability and statistics. He has presented elegant solutions to several difficult problems in probability theory that are of interest to applied statisticians. They mainly concern sequential analysis ­ the study of how data should be accumulated in an experimental situation. Siegmund pioneered the development of methods that are used in the analysis of sequential clinical trials, allowing pharmaceutical investigators to assess, for instance, if a new medicinal treatment is better or worse than an old one, and if the results warrant stopping an FDA Phase III clinical trial. His recent work has focused on different problems in statistical genetics, especially genetic mapping, or identifying the locations of genes that are involved in specific traits. He employs similar methods to aid the analysis of sequences of amino acids that make up proteins. Siegmund earned a doctorate from Columbia University in 1966 and served on the Columbia faculty until 1976, with a brief stint at Stanford from 1967 to 1969. He accepted a full professorship with the Stanford Department of Statistics in 1976, serving as department chair from 1982 to 1985 and 1997 to 2001. He was associate dean of the School of Humanities and Sciences from 1993 to 1996. Author of two books on sequential analysis and a former president of the Institute for Mathematical Statistics, Siegmund has been recipient of Guggenheim, Einstein and Fulbright fellowships, the Humboldt Prize, the Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Wilks Medal of the American Statistical Association. He also is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.