William Gemmell Cochran

William Gemmell Cochran ( born July 15, 1909 in Rutherglen, near Glasgow, Scotland, † March 29, 1980 in Orleans ( Massachusetts)) was a Scottish statistician.

Cochran studied mathematics at the University of Glasgow and the University of Cambridge. In the years 1934-1939 he worked at the Rothamsted Experimental Station, an agricultural culture research center in Harpenden ( Hertfordshire, England). In the following years he was involved in the founding of several departments of statistics, including in North Carolina, where he collaborated with Gertrude Mary Cox on experimental design. He spent the longest part of his career at Harvard University in the period from 1957 until his retirement in 1976.

Cochran wrote a series of articles and books that have been partly to standard works. The statistician was known by the set of Cochran.

Publications

• Experimental designs ( co-author Gertrude Mary Cox ) 1950 ISBN 0-471-54567-8
• Sampling techniques in 1952, 1963, 1977, 3rd edition ISBN 0-471-16240- X As a German -language translation by Wulf Böing: sampling procedure 1972, ISBN 3-11-002040-8