Jerome Cornfield

Jerome (Jerry) Cornfield (1912–1979) was a US statistician. He is best known for his work in biostatistics, but his early work was in economic statistics and he also contributed to the theory of Bayesian inference. He also played a role in the early development of input-output analysis and linear programming.

He was born on October 12, 1912 in The Bronx, New York City. He graduated from New York University in 1933 and was briefly a graduate student at Columbia University. He also studied statistics and mathematics at the Graduate School of the US Department of Agriculture while employed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where he remained until 1947. He later worked at the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Biostatistics at Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, the National Heart Institute, the University of Pittsburgh, and George Washington University.

He was the R. A. Fisher Lecturer in 1973 and President of the American Statistical Association in 1974.

Cornfield married Ruth Bittler in 1937. They had two daughters.

He died on September 17, 1979 in Herndon, Virginia.

References

• Greenhouse, Samuel W. (1982). "A Tribute". Biometrics 38 (Proceedings of "Current Topics in Biostatistics and Epidemiology." A Memorial Symposium in Honor of Jerome Cornfield): 3–6. JSTOR 2529847. 
• Greenhouse, Samuel W. (2005). "Cornfield, Jerome". Encyclopedia of Biostatistics. John Wiley & Sons. doi:10.1002/0470011815.b2a17032. 
• Jerome Cornfield Papers: Historical Note. Special Collections Department, Iowa State University.
• Jerome Cornfield: Chair 1958–1960. Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.