Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: David Vere-Jones, Emeritus Professor at the Victoria University of Wellington (VUW), New Zealand, passed away on 31 October 2024 aged 88 years. The world of statistics, and the New Zealand mathematical and statistical communities, in particular, have lost a great and influential leader. In the words of a Maori saying, a mighty totara has fallen in the forest of Tane. David’s breadth of scholarship and achievement in the service of mathematics and statistics was remarkable. He made fundamental contributions to the theory of Markov and point processes, was a founding father of statistical seismology, and a founder of the International Association for Statistical Education. He helped set up the New Zealand Mathematical Society and was a president of the New Zealand Statistical Association. He had a profound influence on the New Zealand secondary school mathematics and statistics syllabus with innovations that were emulated by other countries. David was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 1982, awarded the Henri Willem Methorst Medal from the International Statistical Institute (ISI) in 1995, and was awarded the Rutherford Medal, New Zealand’s highest scientific honour, in 1999. Born in London, England, on 17 April 1936, David attended Cheadle Hulme School, near Manchester, until the age of 12 when his family emigrated to Wellington, New Zealand. He attended Hutt Valley High School where he developed his interest in mathematics and was dux in 1953. Mathematics formed the centre of his undergraduate programme at the VUW where he came to the attention of Professor J.T. Campbell, an accomplished mathematician (a student of A.C. Aitken) and a gifted teacher. Campbell recommended David to the Applied Mathematics Laboratory of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) as a vacation student under Peter Whittle. David was profoundly influenced by Peter at a personal level (they became close friends) and by Peter’s mathematical insight and remarkable intuition. Following the completion of his MSc in 1958 and with encouragement from Campbell, David won a Rhodes Scholarship to take up postgraduate study in probability theory with David Kendall at the University of Oxford (Magdalen College). His thesis topic on the geometric ergodicity of denumerable Markov chains led to the first of his significant publications (now well in excess of 150). Life at Oxford was stressful and demanding, and there were times when acting and the theatre (a consuming interest begun in his undergraduate years) became a strong contender for a preferred career. Such feelings were exacerbated by the loneliness and challenge of being a postgraduate mathematician, coupled perhaps with being such a long way from home. In 1961, after completing his DPhil, David was accepted into a 1-year postdoctoral exchange programme with the Soviet Union. He already had an interest in Russian literature and had started learning Russian so this was an opportunity to explore a different country with a very different mathematical tradition and experience. He worked on queueing theory at Moscow University with Boris Gnedenko, whose friendship, collegiality, and warm Russian hospitality made an indelible impression on David. By David’s own admission, this year was to prove one of the most arduous and enriching years of his life. In 1962, David returned to New Zealand and the DSIR Applied Mathematics Laboratory. At the outset, he was involved in a descriptive study of New Zealand earthquakes. This was the beginning of his lifelong interest in statistical seismology with his first paper on the subject published in 1964 (with S. Turnovsky and G.A. Eiby). During this period his friendship with Mary Chung, begun in their university years, blossomed, and they were married in the garden of Robin and Mary Williams in 1964 (Robin was head of the DSIR Applied Mathematics Laboratory where they both worked). Shortly after, David and Mary left for Canberra, Australia, where David had accepted a research position in the Statistics Department, Institute of Advanced Studies, Australian National University, under Pat Moran. David and Mary enjoyed their time in Canberra (almost 5 years) where the first two of their three children (Helen, Andrew, and Martin) were born. This was one of the most creative periods of his career (see The Craft of Probability Modelling—A Collection of Personal Reminiscences edited by J. Gani, Springer, 1986) where he was able to interact with many excellent students including C.K. Cheong (his first PhD student who went on to become Chief Executive of Singapore Airlines), Eugene Seneta, Mark Westcott, Robin Milne, and Richard Tweedie. In 1969, he spent a sabbatical year at Manchester before returning to New Zealand to take up the chair of mathematics at VUW vacated by J.T. Campbell. One imagines that Campbell and his predecessors R.C. Maclaurin and D.M.Y. Sommerville, all well-known international mathematicians, would have been very pleased with their successor and the high quality of the contributions he went on to make. At VUW David was given special responsibility for the development of statistics and probability. He took up this challenge from the outset with energy and foresight. New Zealand’s smallness and physical isolation had led to local innovation and a do-it-yourself culture that David set out to harness and build on. His powers of persuasion were legendary and networks of people from many disciplines were soon involved in promoting his many teaching and research initiatives, founded on local needs and skills in science, business, and industry. He believed that such statistical developments, theoretical or practical, had a greater chance of flourishing and making a beneficial impact both nationally and internationally. These views led David to set up the Victoria University Institute of Statistics and Operations Research (ISOR) with Professors Fraser Jackson (Econometrics) and Tony Vignaux (Information Science) to promote and support statistical and operations research teaching and practice across the university as a whole. The Institute of Statistics and Operations Research grew from very modest beginnings, accruing further responsibilities and developing a wide variety of research and teaching programmes of a largely interdisciplinary character grounded in applications of importance to the university, New Zealand, and more widely. At its peak, it had a staff complement of around 13 with half funded from its departmental grant and the rest from a mix of external consulting, internal consulting, and financial mathematics positions supported largely from the New Zealand insurance industry. Its visitors programme was rich and varied, attracting many eminent overseas researchers as well as locals. David presided over and guided all aspects of these influential and exciting developments with characteristic wisdom, warmth, generosity, and thoughtfulness. Throughout his ISOR years, David’s research productivity continued unabated with contributions to applied probability, statistics, stochastic processes, statistical seismology, and teaching. He wrote, with Daryl Daley, a seminal reference book An Introduction to the Theory of Point Processes which they subsequently revised and extended to two volumes. In 1995, his invited review paper, Forecasting earthquakes and earthquake risk (International Journal of Forecasting 11) was awarded a prize, in part a reflection of his ground-breaking work in statistical seismology. David’s extensive overseas travels led to many of his international colleagues visiting New Zealand which, in turn, seeded enduring international research relationships between New Zealand statisticians and their overseas counterparts (Japan, China, and Australia to name just a few). Within New Zealand, David was the Subject Convenor for Mathematics for the University Entrance Board of the University Grants Committee (1978–1985) and chaired the Education Committee in the Royal Society of New Zealand (1987–1990). He spearheaded a successful bid for New Zealand to host the 1990 International Conference on Teaching Statistics (ICOTS 3) and chaired its International Programme Committee. He was a chairman of the ISI Education Committee (1987–1991) and encouraged the growth of the East Asian and Pacific Regional Committee of the Bernoulli Society. David was the key figure behind the introduction of applied statistics into the New Zealand upper secondary school mathematics curriculum. These reforms were among the first of their kind, both nationally and internationally, and have remained largely in place leading to enhanced statistical literacy for generations of young New Zealanders. David retired from VUW in 2000, becoming professor emeritus. He remained an active researcher, founding Statistics Research Associates (SRA) in 1999 (with Robert Davies and Peter Thomson). Under its auspices, David led successful research projects on earthquake risk modelling and a research programme on Hidden Markov Models and Complex Systems. In 2005, he was a joint reviewer (with A.F.M Smith and I.R. James) of statistics programmes at Australian Universities. This review was influential in both Australia and New Zealand. David also played a leading role in setting up an annual series of Statistical Seismology workshops with the first in China hosted by the China State Seismological Bureau. These workshops have helped the formation of Statistical Seismology as a subdiscipline in its own right. In 2001, a Festschrift was held to mark David’s 65th birthday. Papers contributed by friends and colleagues were published in a book Probability, Statistics, and Seismology which also includes an excellent paper by David on The marriage of statistics and seismology. In 2009, he received the Campbell Award from the New Zealand Statistical Association for his contributions to the promotion and development of statistics in New Zealand and elsewhere. For David’s 75th birthday, SRA hosted a series of seminars in his honour and, in 2014, the Royal Society of New Zealand awarded David the prestigious Jones Medal in recognition of his lifetime achievements in statistics. Many individuals, groups and organizations have benefited enormously from David’s wise guidance and inspirational leadership. They have frequently turned to him for advice and help—none found him wanting. This dedication is characteristic of a man who has always unstintingly and selflessly given his time to help others. The hallmarks of David Vere-Jones include his vision, infectious energy and enthusiasm, and, above all, his warmth and compassion for others of all persuasions and all walks of life. He will be missed by many all around the world, but particularly in New Zealand where the New Zealand statistical and mathematical communities are immeasurably richer for his prodigious contributions and the poorer for his departure.
Authors: Robert Davies, Peter Thomson
Language: English
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
Funder: Science Foundation Ireland
OpenAlex ID: W4405757903