Jeff Rosenthal

Jeff Rosenthal
head shot of Jeffrey Rosenthal
Born Jeffrey Seth Rosenthal
October 13, 1967
Scarborough, Ontario, Canada
Citizenship Canadian
Fields Statistics
Institutions University of Toronto
Notable awards COPSS Presidents' Award (2007)
Website
probability.ca

Jeffrey Seth "Jeff" Rosenthal, FRSC, FIMS (born October 13, 1967, Scarborough, Ontario) is an award-winning Canadian statistician and author. He is a professor in the University of Toronto's Department of Statistics, cross-appointed with Department of Mathematics. He has written numerous research papers about the theory of Markov chain Monte Carlo and other statistical computation algorithms, many joint with Gareth O. Roberts.[1][2] He received the CRM-SSC Prize in 2006,[3] the COPSS Presidents' Award in 2007,[4] the Statistical Society of Canada Gold Medal in 2013,[5] and an Outstanding Teaching Award in 1998.[6] He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 2005,[7] and of the Royal Society of Canada in 2012.[8]

In 2005 Rosenthal wrote a book for the general public, Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities,[9] which was a bestseller in Canada[10][11] and has been published in nine languages.[12] He has also written a graduate textbook on probability theory[13] and co-authored an undergraduate textbook on probability and statistics.[14] He has been interviewed by the media about such diverse topics as crime statistics,[15] pedestrian deaths,[16] gambling probabilities,[17][18] and television game shows,[19] and has appeared on William Shatner's Weird or What?.

In 2006, Rosenthal did the statistical analysis used by The Fifth Estate to expose the Ontario lottery retailer fraud scandal,[20] which was debated in the Ontario provincial legislature.[21] In 2010 his research with Albert H. Yoon about the U.S. Supreme Court was quoted in the New York Times.[22] He has also written about the Monty Hall problem.[23]

Rosenthal graduated from Woburn Collegiate Institute in 1984, received his B.Sc. (in mathematics, physics, and computer science) from the University of Toronto in 1988, and received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University in 1992 (supervised by Persi Diaconis).[24] He performs music and improvisational comedy, including at The Bad Dog Theatre Company.[25] He also supervises student projects.

References

  1. ↑ Roberts, Gareth O., and Jeffrey S. Rosenthal. "General State Space Markov Chains and MCMC Algorithms." Probability Surveys 1 (2004): 20-71.
  2. ↑ Rosenthal, Jeffrey S. "Optimal Proposal Distributions and Adaptive MCMC." In Handbook of Markov Chain Monte Carlo: Methods and Applications, edited by Steve Brooks, Andrew Gelman, Galin L. Jones and Xiao-Li Meng. London: Chapman & Hall, 2011. ISBN 978-1-4200-7941-8
  3. ↑ "2006 CRM-SSC Prize in Statistics awarded to Dr. Jeffrey Rosenthal,"Centre de recherches mathématiques, accessed June 6, 2011, http://www.crm.umontreal.ca/prix/prixCRM-SSC/rosenthal_en.html.
  4. ↑ "Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies: Presidents' Award: Past Award Recipients," National Institute of Statistical Sciences, accessed June 5, 2011, http://nisla05.niss.org/copss/PastAwardsPresidents.pdf.
  5. ↑ "2013 SSC Award Winners," Statistical Society of Canada, accessed June 9, 2013, http://www.ssc.ca/en/award-winners/award-winners-2013#medal.
  6. ↑ "Past Winners at UofT: Faculty of Arts & Science Outstanding Teaching Award," University of Toronto, accessed June 14, 2011, http://www.teaching.utoronto.ca/teaching/rewardingteaching/past-winners-uoft/a-s-teaching-award.htm.
  7. ↑ "IMS Fellows," Institute of Mathematical Statistics, accessed June 5, 2011, http://www.imstat.org/awards/honored_fellows.htm.
  8. ↑ "Class of 2012: List of New Fellows", Royal Society of Canada, accessed June 9, 2013, http://rsc-src.ca/sites/default/files/pdf/Classof2012-CitationsENGLISH-Final.pdf.
  9. ↑ Rosenthal, Jeffrey S. Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities. Toronto: HarperCollins, 2005. ISBN 978-0-00-200791-7
  10. ↑ Bethune, Brian. "Bestsellers: Top selling fiction and non-fiction titles" Maclean's, November 28, 2005.
  11. ↑ "Bestsellers: The Globe and Mail's weekly national list." The Globe and Mail, October 7, 2006.
  12. ↑ "Struck by Lightning: The Curious World of Probabilities," accessed May 29, 2011, http://probability.ca/sbl/.
  13. ↑ Rosenthal, Jeffrey S. A First look at Rigorous Probability Theory, 2nd ed. Singapore: World Scientific, 2006. ISBN 978-981-270-371-2
  14. ↑ Evans, Michael J. and Jeffrey S. Rosenthal. Probability and Statistics: The Science of Uncertainty, 2nd ed. New York: W.H. Freeman, 2010. ISBN 978-1-4292-2462-8
  15. ↑ Loriggio, Paola. "You're safer than you think: statistics expert." Toronto Star, January 19, 2008.
  16. ↑ Yang, Jennifer. "Numbers don't always tell the whole story." Toronto Star, January 30, 2010.
  17. ↑ Droganes, Constance. "Card counting: outsmarting casinos at their own game." CTV.ca, March 29, 2008.
  18. ↑ Prois, Jessica. "Playing the odds with everyday life: Toronto professor to lecture on how to make better choices by considering probabilities." Vegas Seven, February 17, 2010.
  19. ↑ Nestruck, J. Kelly. "The deal breaker: If you're a guest on Howie Mandel's show, you should bring Jeffrey Rosenthal -- not your dad", National Post, May 30, 2006.
  20. ↑ Burnett, Thane. "Solving equations and solving crime: Toronto math prof proves his point when it comes to insiders winning lottery prizes", Toronto Sun, February 21, 2009.
  21. ↑ "House Proceedings, Wednesday, 25 October 2006," Legislative Assembly of Ontario, accessed June 6, 2011, http://www.ontla.on.ca/house-proceedings/transcripts/files_html/2006-10-25_L113A.htm#P232_25936.
  22. ↑ Liptak, Adam. "Justices are long on words but short on guidance." New York Times, November 17, 2010.
  23. ↑ Rosenthal, Jeffrey S. "Monty Hall, Monty Fall, Monty Crawl", probability.ca, September 2008; accessed November 21, 2014.
  24. ↑ "Mathematics Genealogy Project," Mathematics Department, North Dakota State University, accessed June 6, 2011, http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/id.php?id=18775.
  25. ↑ Gibson, Stacey. "Games of chance: math prof and amateur comic Jeffrey Rosenthal embraces randomness -- both on stage and in class", UofT Magazine 33, No. 3 (Spring 2006): 30-34.