Thomas S. Ferguson

Thomas Shelburne Ferguson (born December 14, 1929) is an American mathematician and statistician. He is a professor emeritus of mathematics and statistics at the University of California, Los Angeles.[1]

For the archeologist and Book of Mormon scholar, see Thomas Stuart Ferguson.

Thomas S. Ferguson
Born (1929-12-14) December 14, 1929
Oakland, California, USA
SpouseBeatriz Rossello
ChildrenChris Ferguson
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of California, Berkeley
ThesisOn the Existence of Linear Regression in Linear Structural Relations (1956)
Doctoral advisorLucien Le Cam
Academic work
DisciplineMathematical statistics
Game theory
InstitutionsUniversity of California, Los Angeles
Doctoral studentsLynn Kuo
Websitewww.math.ucla.edu/~tom/

Education and career

Ferguson was born in Oakland, California and was raised nearby in Alameda, California. He majored in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, and completed his Ph.D. there in 1956.[1] His dissertation had two separately-titled parts, On Existence of Linear Regression in Linear Structural Relations and A Method of Generating Best Asymptotically Normal Estimates with Application to the Estimation of Bacterial Densities; it was supervised by Lucien Le Cam.[2]

After another year teaching at Berkeley, he moved to the University of California, Los Angeles in 1957.[1]

Contributions

Ferguson is the author of:

  • Mathematical Statistics: A Decision Theoretic Approach (Academic Press, 1967)[3]
  • A Course in Large Sample Theory (Chapman & Hall, 1996)[4]
  • A Course in Game Theory (World Scientific, 2020)[5]

His research contributions include the analysis of the "big match" zero-sum game with David Blackwell, a result that eventually led to the proof of existence of equilibrium values for limiting average payoff in all stochastic games; the Ferguson distribution on prior probability; Ferguson's Dirichlet process;[1] Ferguson's pairing property in the analysis of misère subtraction games;[1][6] and contributions to the theory of optimal stopping as e.g. co-authored work on Robbins' problem.[1]

Recognition

Ferguson was named a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 1967,[1] and a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1985. He was given the Belgian International Francqui Chair of Science in 1998. A festschrift in Ferguson's honor edited by F. Thomas Bruss and Lucien Le Cam was published in 2000.[1]

Personal life

Ferguson married mathematician Beatriz Rossello, and is the father of poker player Chris Ferguson.[1][7] He has coauthored papers with Chris Ferguson on the mathematics of poker and other games of chance.

References
  1. Bruss, F. Thomas; Le Cam, Lucien Marie, eds. (2000), "Biography", Game Theory, Optimal Stopping, Probability and Statistics: Papers in Honor of Thomas S. Ferguson, Institute of Mathematical Statistics Lecture Notes, vol. 35, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, ISBN 9780940600485
  2. Thomas S. Ferguson at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
  3. Reviews of Mathematical Statistics:
    • Mammitzsch, V., zbMATH, Zbl 0153.47602{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Reinhardt, H. E., Mathematical Reviews, MR 0215390{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Stone, M. (1968), Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A (General), 131 (2): 232, doi:10.2307/2343847, JSTOR 2343847{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Rogers, Gerald S. (February 1968), Technometrics, 10 (1): 215–216, doi:10.2307/1266244, JSTOR 1266244{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Hollander, Myles (June 1968), Journal of the American Statistical Association, 63 (322): 721–722, doi:10.2307/2284042, JSTOR 2284042{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Miller, David W. (October 1968), Management Science, 15 (2): B113, JSTOR 2628876{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Wijsman, Robert A. (December 1968), The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 39 (6): 2163–2167, doi:10.1214/aoms/1177698055, JSTOR 2239324{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
    • Toutenburg, H. (1970), Biometrische Zeitschrift, 12 (3): 196, doi:10.1002/bimj.19700120322{{citation}}: CS1 maint: untitled periodical (link)
  4. Reviews of A Course in Large Sample Theory:
  5. Ferguson, Thomas S (May 17, 2020). A Course in Game Theory. doi:10.1142/10634. ISBN 978-981-322-734-7. S2CID 229065828.
  6. Berlekamp, Elwyn R.; Conway, John H.; Guy, Richard K. (2001), "Ferguson's pairing property", Winning Ways for your Mathematical Plays, vol. 1 (2nd ed.), A K Peters, p. 96
  7. Wilkinson, Alec (March 23, 2009), "What would Jesus bet?", The New Yorker
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