Statisticians

Ronald Fisher was a British polymath, statistician, geneticist, mathematician, and academic. He is credited to have single-handedly created the foundations for modern statistical science. He made important contributions to the field of genetics and is known as one of the three principal founders of population genetics. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1929. 

A Swedish physician, academic, and public speaker, Hans Rosling was the co-founder of Gapminder Foundation, that is known for the development the Trendalyzer software system. He gave several talks/lectures, presented television documentaries like Don’t Panic: The Truth about Population and also co-authored a bestselling book titled Factfulness. Additionally, he was a professor of international health at Karolinska Institute too.

One of the greatest statisticians of all time, Karl Pearson established the first university-level statistics department at UCL and also launched the statistics-oriented journal Biometrika. He was also well-versed in law and believed in eugenics. His The Grammar of Science later inspired Albert Einstein and other scientists.

Edward Tufte is an American statistician best known for his pioneering work in the area of data visualization. He also serves as a professor emeritus of computer science, statistics, and political science at Yale University.

A pioneer of the mathematical method in economics, William Stanley Jevons was the son of an iron merchant and economic enthusiast. Remembered for his studies on marginal utility and supply/demand, he penned the iconic work A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy and also wrote on Britain’s depleting coal supplies.

S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan is an Indian American mathematician whose contributions to probability theory have earned him several prestigious awards including the National Medal of Science in 2010. He is also renowned for coming up with a unified theory of large deviations. He is currently serving as a professor at the Courant Institute.

E. Morton Jellinek was an American biostatistician, alcoholism researcher, and physiologist. He is best remembered for his association with the World Health Organization, where he worked as a consultant on alcoholism. E. Morton Jellinek was also associated with several prestigious institutions, such as Stanford University and Yale University.

English agriculturist Arthur Young was a prolific English writer, particularly on agriculture. He earned repute for views he expressed as an agricultural improver, social observer and political economist. Young was a prominent opponent of British reformers. Some of his notable books are Annals of Agriculture, Tour in Ireland and Travels in France. The latter includes descriptions of the French Revolution.    

German statistician Ernst Engel conducted an interesting study on over 150 Belgian families to come to the conclusion that the lower a family’s income, the greater is their expense on food. His revelation came to be known as the Engel curve, or the Engel’s law. He was also part of various statistical departments.

Raj Chandra Bose was an Indian-American statistician and mathematician best remembered for his work in finite geometry, design theory, and the theory of error-correcting codes. He is also credited with inventing the notions of association scheme, partial geometry, and strongly regular graph.

Born to a surveyor father, Gregory King initially assisted his father and then began working for John Ogilby as an engraver. The economic statistician not only lent his name to the Gregory King's Law but also contributed to most of the street layouts for London’s Soho.

Clément Juglar was a French doctor and statistician. Even while practicing as a doctor, he wrote several articles on trends in French population statistics over several decades. He developed an economic theory of business cycles and is believed to be one of the first to do so. His theory inspired later economists such as Joseph Schumpeter. 

Former British road race champion Matthew Stephens is a cycling legend. He has also had a 12-year stint in the police force and has worked in child protection, while balancing his cycling career. He once spoke publicly about his failed marriage and how not being able to see his son broke him emotionally.