19 Facts About Frederick Mosteller

Charles Frederick Mosteller was an American mathematician, considered one of the most eminent statisticians of the 20th century.

Frederick Mosteller was the founding chairman of Harvard's statistics department from 1957 to 1971, and served as the president of several professional bodies including the Psychometric Society, the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the International Statistical Institute.

Frederick Mosteller was born in Clarksburg, West Virginia, on December 24,1916, to Helen Kelley Mosteller and William Roy Mosteller.

Frederick Mosteller was raised near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and attended Carnegie Institute of Technology.

Frederick Mosteller completed his ScM degree at Carnegie Tech in 1939, and enrolled at Princeton University in 1939 to work on a PhD with statistician Samuel S Wilks.

Frederick Mosteller received his PhD in mathematics from Princeton University in 1946.

Frederick Mosteller was hired by Harvard University's Department of Social Relations in 1946, where he received tenure in 1951 and served as acting chair from 1953 to 1954.

Frederick Mosteller founded the Department of Statistics and served as its first chairman from 1957 to 1969,1973,1975 to 1977.

Frederick Mosteller chaired the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1977 to 1981 and later the Department of Health Policy and Management in the 1980s.

Frederick Mosteller taught courses at Harvard Law School and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Frederick Mosteller worked with his mathematical assistant Cleo Youtz from the 1950s until his departure from Harvard in 2003, and had an administrative assistant.

Frederick Mosteller was well known for being a good writer, insisting on doing up to fifteen drafts of a paper or book chapter before showing it to his colleagues and several additional drafts before submitting the paper to a journal.

Frederick Mosteller was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the United States National Academy of Sciences.

Frederick Mosteller retired from classroom teaching in 1987, but continued working and publishing at Harvard through 2003.

Frederick Mosteller wrote over 50 books and over 350 papers, with over 200 coauthors.

Frederick Mosteller used the didactic method, among other approaches to teaching.

Frederick Mosteller was a mentor to many, and his positive attitudes toward teaching influenced his many students.

Frederick Mosteller rehearsed every lecture that he gave at least once, in the actual circumstances, for the timing of the lecture, and to avoid the temptation to speak quickly in order to fit in more material.

Frederick Mosteller taught a class in probability and statistics as part of the educational television program, Continental Classroom - Mathematics, in 1960 and 1961, supported by the Ford Foundation and broadcast on NBC: 75,000 students took this class for credit at 320 colleges and universities around the country, and 1.2 million watched the lectures on television on 170 stations.