List of women in statistics

This is a list of women who have made noteworthy contributions to or achievements in statistics.

A

• Edith Abbott (1876–1957), American economist, social worker, educator, and author
• Dorothy Adkins (1912–1975), psychologist concentrating on psychometrics
• Beatrice Aitchison (1908–1997), transportation economist who became the top woman in the United States Postal Service
• Deborah Ashby (1959–), British statistician who specialises in medical statistics and Bayesian statistics

B

• Rosemary A. Bailey (1947– ), British statistician who works in the design of experiments and the analysis of variance
• Nancy Bates, senior researcher at the United States Census Bureau
• Grace Bediako, former head of Ghana Statistical Service
• Lynne Billard, Australian-American AIDS researcher, president of American Statistical Association and International Biometric Society
• Sheila Bird (1952–), British biostatistician whose assessment of misuse of statistics led to statistical guidelines for medical journals
• Dorothy Brady (1903–1977), American professor of economics at the Wharton School
• Margaret K. Butler (1924–2013), statistician at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, developed software for nuclear simulations

C

• Kate Calder, American expert on spatiotemporal Bayesian modeling
• Ann Cartwright (1925–), explored issues with the use and perception of primary medical care in Britain
• Kathryn Chaloner (1954–2014), expert in Bayesian experimental design, worked on HIV, AIDS, infectious diseases, and women's health
• Enid Charles (1894–1972), British pioneer in demography and population statistics and expert on fertility rates
• Jie Chen, Chinese–American professor of biostatistics and epidemiology and expert on change detection
• Kate Claghorn (1864–1938), American sociologist, economist, statistician, legal scholar, and Progressive Era activist
• Clara Collet (1860–1948), British social reformer who collected statistical and descriptive evidence of life for working women and poor people
• Cathy A. Cowan, American economist and social scientist
• Gertrude Mary Cox (1900–1978), researcher on experimental design, president of the American Statistical Association
• Stella Cunliffe (1917–2012), British statistician, first female president of the Royal Statistical Society

D

• Florence Nightingale David (1909–1993), English statistician, winner of first Elizabeth L. Scott Award
• Annette Dobson, Australian researcher in biostatistics, epidemiology, longitudinal studies, and social determinants of health
• Vanja Dukic, American biostatistician who uses internet search patterns to track diseases
• Olive Jean Dunn (1915–2008), American statistician, contributed to the development of confidence intervals in biostatistics
• Karen Dunnell (1946–), Chief Executive of the UK Office for National Statistics and head of the Government Statistical Service

E

• Lynn Eberly, American researcher in longitudinal studies, medical imaging, and other forms of correlated data
• Ethel M. Elderton (1878–1954), British eugenics researcher
• Jane Elliott (1966–), British sociologist who uses longitudinal methods to explore issues of gender and employment

G

• Sara van de Geer, Dutch statistician, president of the Bernoulli Society
• Hilda Geiringer (1893–1973), Austrian researcher on Fourier series, statistics, probability, and plasticity, refugee from Nazi Germany
• Yulia Gel, American expert in the nonparametric statistics of spatiotemporal data
• Lisa Goldberg, American mathematical finance scholar and statistician
• Rebecca Goldin, American director of the Statistical Assessment Service
• Selma Fine Goldsmith (1912–1962), American economic statistician who estimated personal income distribution
• Mary W. Gray (1938–), author in applied statistics and founding president of the Association for Women in Mathematics
• Cindy Greenwood, Canadian statistician, winner of Krieger–Nelson Prize

H

• Margaret Jarman Hagood (1907–1963), president of the Population Association of America
• Betz Halloran, biostatistician who studies causal inference and the biostatistics of infectious diseases
• Bronwyn Harch, Australian environmental statistician, applies mathematical sciences to agriculture, environment, health, manufacturing and energy
• Agnes M. Herzberg, first female president of the Statistical Society of Canada
• Heike Hofmann (1972–), researcher on interactive data visualization

I

• Lurdes Inoue, Japanese–Brazilian specialist in in Bayesian inference

K

• Mimi Kim, Harold and Muriel Block Chair in epidemiology and population health and head of biostatistics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
• Charlotte Kipling (1919–1992), English statistician, ichthyologist, and cryptographer
• Daphne Koller (1968–), Israeli–American author of text and online course on probabilistic graphical models, 2004 MacArthur Fellow
• Frauke Kreuter, German researcher on in survey methodology, sampling error, and observational error

L

• Nan Laird (1943– ), American biostatistician, discoverer of the EM algorithm
• Nicole Lazar (1966–), American–Canadian–Israeli researcher on empirical likelihood and functional neuroimaging
• Alice Lee (1858–1939), British researcher on biometrics
• Yoonkyung Lee, Korean–American expert on multicategory support vector machines
• Denise Lievesley, British director of Statistics at UNESCO, founder of the Institute for Statistics, and director of the UK Data Archive

M

• Eleanor Josephine Macdonald (1906–2007), American cancer epidemiologist who established the first cancer registry in the US
• Cathie Marsh (1951–1993), British sociologist and statistician who made a case for the use of surveys in sociology
• Jil Matheson, former National Statistician of the UK
• Kerrie Mengersen (1962–), Australian director of the Bayesian Research and Applications Group at Queensland University of Technology
• Ida Craven Merriam (1904–1997), American Social Security economist and statistician who founded the National Academy of Social Insurance
• Susan Murphy (1958–), applies statistical methods to clinical trials of treatments for chronic and relapsing medical conditions

N

One of Florence Nightingale's pioneering works in statistical graphics

• Ethel Newbold (1882–1933), English epidemiologist and statistician, namesake of Ethel Newbold Prize for excellence in statistics
• Helen Alma Newton Turner (1908–1995), Australian authority on sheep genetics
• Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), English founder of modern nursing, pioneer in information visualization and statistical graphics
• Janet L. Norwood (1923–2015), first female Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

O

• Mollie Orshansky (1915–2006), American economist and statistician, set poverty thresholds for household income

P

• Vera Pawlowsky-Glahn, Spanish statistician and geoscientist
• Dominique Picard (1953– ), French expert on the statistical applications of wavelets
• Elżbieta Pleszczyńska (1933– ), Polish statistician, disability rights activist

R

• Sophia Rabe-Hesketh, American expert on generalized linear mixed models with latent variables
• Nancy Reid (1952– ), Canadian theoretical statistician, president of Institute of Mathematical Statistics and Statistical Society of Canada
• Sylvia Richardson, French expert on Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods for spatial statistics

S

• Ester Samuel-Cahn (1933–), winner of the Israel Prize for her work in statistics
• Elizabeth Scott (1917–1988), applied statistics to astronomy and weather modification, promoted equal opportunity for women
• Rosedith Sitgreaves (1915–1992), American researcher on random matrices and Kendall's W
• Kirstine Smith (1878–1939), Danish statistician, created the field of optimal design of experiments
• Elizabeth A. Stuart, American researcher on causal inference and missing data in the statistics of mental health
• Catherine Sugar, American biostatistician who studies cluster analysis, covariance, and applications in medicine and psychiatry

T

• Irene Barnes Taeuber (1906–1974), American editor of Population Index who helped establish the science of demography
• Judith Tanur, American editor of the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences
• Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1899–1977), population growth expert who became first female president of the American Sociological Association

U

• Jessica Utts (1952–), American parapsychologist, statistics educator, and president of the American Statistical Association

V

• Mary van Kleeck (1883–1972), American social feminist and proponent of scientific management and a planned economy

W

• Helen M. Walker (1891–1983), first female president of the American Statistical Association
• Katherine Wallman, Chief Statistician of the United States and president of the American Statistical Association
• Aryness Joy Wickens (1901–1991), American labor statistician and president of the American Statistical Association
• Ruth J. Williams, American probability theorist, president of Institute of Mathematical Statistics, member of National Academy of Sciences
• Hilda Mary Woods (1892–1971), British epidemiologist, first female lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Y

• Grace Y. Yi, Chinese–Canadian expert in event history analysis with missing data in medicine, engineering, and social science
• Bin Yu, Chinese–American statistician, president of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics

See also

• List of female scientists
• List of women in mathematics