Robert V. Hogg facts for kids

Robert Vincent ("Bob") Hogg (November 8, 1924 – December 23, 2014) was an American statistician. He was a professor of statistics at the University of Iowa. Bob Hogg is famous for his popular textbooks about statistics. He wrote these books with his student Elliot Alan Tanis and his advisor Allen Thornton Craig. He was also known for his work in statistics education.

Bob Hogg's Life and Career

Early Life and Education

Bob Hogg was born on November 8, 1924, in Hannibal, Missouri. He served in the U.S. Navy for three years, from 1943 to 1946. In 1947, he earned his bachelor's degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois.

Hogg wanted to become an actuary, someone who uses math to study risks. He went to the mathematics department at the University of Iowa. There, he studied statistics with Allen Craig. Craig became his mentor and helped him get a job teaching statistics. Hogg earned his Ph.D. in 1950 under Allen Craig. After graduating, he stayed at the University of Iowa and became a long-serving professor.

Discovering Basu's Theorem

Bob Hogg independently discovered a special part of something called "Basu's theorem". He found this a few years before Deb Basu published his work. Hogg's second paper on this topic was never published. This was because an anonymous reviewer gave it a negative report in 1953. Later, Basu mentioned Hogg's work for its interesting uses in statistics.

Working with Allen Craig

Bob Hogg and Allen Craig wrote an important textbook called "Hogg and Craig". This book was special because it focused on "sufficient statistics". This is a way to summarize data without losing important information. The book also showed new ways to find the distributions of different random variables.

Allen Craig was Hogg's mentor and helped him start his teaching career. After Hogg graduated, Craig became a close friend. He was the best man at Hogg's wedding. He was also a "godparent" to each of Hogg's four children. Hogg even named his son Allen after Craig.

Leading the Statistics Department

In 1965, Bob Hogg became the first leader of the new Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science. He stayed in this role for 19 years. At the University of Iowa, Hogg also held other important positions. These included leading the Quality Management and Productivity Program. He also held the Hanson Chair of Manufacturing Productivity. After teaching for 51 years, Hogg became a Professor Emeritus in 2001. This means he retired but kept his title.

Teaching Statistics

Bob Hogg was a major leader in statistics education in the United States. He helped improve how statistics was taught.

He received many awards for his teaching. These included the Iowa Governor’s Science Medal for Teaching in 1990. He also won the Iowa Board of Regents' Award for Faculty Excellence in 1992. The Iowa Section of the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) gave him a Distinguished Teaching Award in 1992. The national MAA gave him the same award in 1993. At the University of Iowa, he won his first teaching award after a student nominated him. The student's nomination was titled "There is a hog in my statistics book!".

Awards and Honors

To celebrate Bob Hogg's 70th birthday, a special conference was held. The Institute of Mathematical Statistics organized it. The papers from this conference were published in a special journal issue in 1996. This issue included a list of all of Hogg's published works.

In 2001, Hogg received the Gottfried Noether Senior Scholar Award. This award was for his research in nonparametric statistics.

Hogg was known around the world as a top researcher in statistics. He was also an excellent professor. He often spoke publicly for the statistics profession. In the United States, he was elected President of the American Statistical Association (ASA) in 1988. One of the ASA President's jobs is to plan the annual meeting. Hogg worked very hard on this. The ASA staff even gave him a name tag that said "Boss Hogg". This was a funny reference to a character from the TV show The Dukes of Hazzard. Three years after being President, he received the ASA’s Founder’s Award in 1991.

Hogg was also active internationally for the statistics profession. He was a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics. This group gave him its Carver Medal. Hogg was also an Elected Member of the International Statistical Institute.