Bill Hunter | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1937-03-27)27 March 1937 Buffalo, New York, U.S. |
| Died | 29 December 1986(1986-12-29) (aged 49) Madison, Wisconsin, U.S. |
| Citizenship | U.S. |
| Alma mater | Princeton |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Statistics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Generation and analysis of data in non-linear situations (1972) |
| Doctoral advisor | |
William Gordon Hunter, or Bill Hunter, (27 March 1937 – 29 December 1986) was a statistician at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison. He was co-author of the classic bookStatistics for Experimenters, and co-founder of theCenter for Quality and Productivity Improvement withGeorge E. P. Box.
Hunter was born March 27, 1937, inBuffalo, New York. In 1959 he received abachelor's degree fromPrinceton and in 1960 amaster's from theUniversity of Illinois in chemical engineering. He then became the first doctoral student at the new department of statistics at theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison founded byGeorge Box.
He contributed to the bookStatistics for Experimenters byBox, William Hunter, andJohn Stuart Hunter (no relation to William Hunter). He founded the Statistics Division of theAmerican Society for Quality and the Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement inMadison, Wisconsin. The Statistics Division of theAmerican Society for Quality gives an annual award called the William G. Hunter Award.
According to Box, "[Hunter] wanted to make a difference in the lives of less fortunate people, and he and his family spent extended periods of time helpingthird world countries." Hunter taught in Singapore for a year and half and Nigeria for a year, both in the 1970s. In the early 1980s, before China allowed in many foreign experts, he spent a summer lecturing there.[1] He helped build Singapore's quality movement.[2]
Hunter was a leader in the effort to adopt theDeming system of Profound Knowledge and related ideas in the public sector. He contributed to Deming'sOut of the Crisis, relating how the city of Madison applied Deming's ideas to a public sector organization.
He was a fellow of theAmerican Statistical Association, theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, and theAmerican Society for Quality Control. From 1963 to 1983 he was an associate editor ofTechnometrics. He was the chairman of the Section on Physical and Engineering Sciences of the American Statistical Association and also served on that organization's board of directors. He served on boards for theNational Research Council of theNational Academy of Sciences and theNational Academy of Engineering.[3]
Hunter died of cancer on December 29, 1986, at the age of 49.
