Kimiko O. Bowman
Dr. Kimiko Osada Bowman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Japan |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | |
| Children | 1 |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Statistics |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | Moments to Higher Orders for Maximum Likelihood Estimates with an Application to the Negative Binomial Distribution |
| Doctoral advisor | Leonard Shenton |
Kimiko Osada Bowman (1927 – 13 January 2019)[1] was a Japanese-American statistician known for her work on approximating the probability distribution of maximum likelihood estimators and for her advocacy for people with disabilities.[2]
Life
Kimiko Osada was born in Japan in 1927 before emigrating to the United States in 1951. She became a U.S. citizen in 1958.[1]
She contracted polio while young, and became paralyzed from the neck down, but learned to walk again through years of physical therapy.[2]
She began her undergraduate studies in home economics at Radford College, but was persuaded by the college president to become a scientist. She studied both mathematics and chemistry and completed a B.S.Ed. in mathematics in 1960.[2][3] She earned a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics from Virginia Tech in 1963; her dissertation, advised by Leonard Shenton, was Moments to Higher Orders for Maximum Likelihood Estimates with an Application to the Negative Binomial Distribution.[2][3][4]
As a senior research scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Bowman worked on the distributional properties of estimators based on non-normal data.[1] Bowman also frequently visited Japan in association with the U.S. Office of Naval Research.[2][3] After 45 years of service, she retired in 1994.[1]
Awards and honors
Bowman became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1976.[5][2] She was also a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute.[2]
In 1987, she was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Tokyo,[3] becoming the first foreigner to be so honored.[2]
References
- ^ a b c d Morris, Max. "Obituary: Kimiko Bowman, 1927–2019". Institute of Mathematical Statistics. Retrieved 13 April 2020.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Snider, Val (September 2008), "Never Say Never: Bowman Helps Provide Formula for Approximating the Distribution of Maximum Likelihood Estimators" (PDF), Statisticians in history, Amstat News, American Statistical Association, pp. 4–6, retrieved 2021-05-13
- ^ a b c d Kimiko O. Bowman, Retired Senior Research Staff Member, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, October 27, 2005, archived from the original on 2017-10-23, retrieved 2021-05-13
- ^ Kimiko O. Bowman at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- ^ Fellows list, American Statistical Association, archived from the original on 2019-11-21, retrieved 2017-10-22
- Articles with short description
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- 1927 births
- 2019 deaths
- People with polio
- American statisticians
- Japanese statisticians
- Women statisticians
- Radford University alumni
- Virginia Tech alumni
- Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Fellows of the American Statistical Association
- Fellows of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics
- Elected Members of the International Statistical Institute
- Japanese emigrants to the United States
- American people of Japanese descent
- People with tetraplegia