In May, Statistics held a Special Seminar honoring the legendary Professor David Blackwell (1919-2010), featuring talks by Distinguished Professor Peter Bickel and Associate Professor Will Fithian. Founded in 1955, the Department of Statistics is celebrating its 70th anniversary. Blackwell is recognized as one of the department’s founders and was the first Black professor to receive tenure at UC Berkeley.

Bickel briefly discussed his contacts, both personal and scientific, with Blackwell. He would go on to discuss one of Blackwell’s noted publication, “An analog of the minmax theorem for vector payoffs.” Fithian’s talk titled ”Estimating the FDR of Variable Selection” presented a modern application of the Rao–Blackwell theorem, illustrating how classical statistical ideas remain relevant in contemporary research on model selection and inference.

“We are tremendously proud of our history here in the Statistics Department here at Berkeley, and we relish the opportunities to talk about the pioneers who were part of our founding in 1955,” said Chair Haiyan Huang. 

Blackwell was known for his independent invention of dynamic programming, which is used today in finance and various areas of science, including genome analysis. He is also known for the renewal theorem, which is used today in various engineering fields, and for independently developing the Rao-Blackwell Theorem, a fundamental concept in modern statistics. 

“He had this great talent for making things appear simple. He liked elegance and simplicity. That is the ultimate best thing in mathematics, if you have an insight that something seemingly complicated is really simple, but simple after the fact,” said Blackwell’s colleague Bickel, who first met each other in 1960. “Blackwell was a wonderful man and, given the trials and tribulations of his life, a very optimistic person.”

Blackwell was the first African American elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1965. He received numerous honors, including the John von Neumann Theory Prize in 1979 and, posthumously, the National Medal of Science in 2012. The Blackwell-Tapia Prize, awarded biennially, recognizes mathematicians who have made significant research contributions and have served as role models for underrepresented minorities in the field of mathematics. UC Berkeley named one of its newest residence halls after Blackwell, opening in 2018.

-Alex Coughlin