Ross Ihaka
Ihaka at the 2010 New Zealand Open Source Awards
Born
George Ross Ihaka

1954 (age 69–70)
Waiuku, New Zealand
Alma materUniversity of Auckland
University of California, Berkeley (PhD)
Known forR programming language
AwardsPickering Medal (2008)
Scientific career
FieldsStatistical computing
InstitutionsUniversity of Auckland
ThesisRūaumoko (1985)
Doctoral advisorDavid R. Brillinger[1]
Websitewww.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/ Edit this at Wikidata

George Ross Ihaka (born 1954[2]) is a New Zealand statistician who was an associate professor of statistics at the University of Auckland until his retirement in 2017.[3] Alongside Robert Gentleman, he is one of the creators of the R programming language.[4][5][6] In 2008, Ihaka received the Pickering Medal, awarded by the Royal Society of New Zealand, for his work on R.[7]

Education

Ihaka completed his undergraduate education at the University of Auckland, and obtained his PhD in 1985 from the University of California, Berkeley supervised by David R. Brillinger.[1] His thesis was on statistical modelling for seismic interferometry and was titled Rūaumoko, after the god of earthquakes, volcanoes and seasons in Māori mythology.[1][8][9]

Career and research

As of 2010, he was working on a new statistical programming language based on Lisp.[10][11] The Department of Statistics at the University of Auckland started a public lecture series in his honour in 2017.[12]

Personal life

Ihaka is of Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne and Ngati Pākehā (New Zealand European) descent.[6][13]

References

  1. ^ a b c Ross Ihaka at the Mathematics Genealogy Project Edit this at Wikidata
  2. ^ Wickham, Hadley (2014). Advanced R. New York: Chapman and Hall/CRC. p. 437. ISBN 9780429192678.
  3. ^ "Ross Ihaka retires from the Department of Statistics – The University of Auckland". stat.auckland.ac.nz. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  4. ^ Ihaka, R.; Gentleman, R. (1996). "R: A Language for Data Analysis and Graphics". Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics. 5 (3): 299–314. doi:10.2307/1390807. JSTOR 1390807.
  5. ^ Vance, Ashlee (7 January 2009). "Data Analysts Captivated by R's Power". The New York Times. Retrieved 7 January 2009.
  6. ^ a b Middleton, Juliet (9 January 2009). "Academic unfazed by rock star status". nzherald.co.nz. The New Zealand Herald.
  7. ^ Pickering Medal: Recipients, Royal Society of New Zealand.
  8. ^ Ihaka, George Ross (1985). Rūaumoko. berkeley.edu (PhD thesis). University of California, Berkeley. OCLC 910485430. ProQuest 303363827.
  9. ^ "David R. Brillinger's students". stat.berkeley.edu. Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley. Retrieved 14 August 2014.
  10. ^ Ihaka, Ross; Temple Lang, Duncan (25 August 2008). "Back to the Future: Lisp as a Base for a Statistical Computing System" (PDF). Compstat 2008: 21–33. doi:10.1007/978-3-7908-2084-3_2. ISBN 978-3-7908-2083-6.
  11. ^ Ihaka, Ross (2010). R: Lessons Learned, Directions for the Future (PDF). Joint Statistical Meetings 2010, Statistical Computing Section.
  12. ^ "Ihaka Lecture Series – The University of Auckland". stat.auckland.ac.nz. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  13. ^ www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/ Edit this at Wikidata



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