Biography:Jane Worcester
Jane Worcester | |
|---|---|
| Died | 8 October 1989 Falmouth, Massachusetts |
| Alma mater | Smith College, Harvard University |
| Awards | Fellow of the American Statistical Association |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Biostatistics, Epidemiology |
| Institutions | Harvard School of Public Health |
| Thesis | The Epidemiology of Streptococcal and Non-Streptococcal Respiratory Disease (1947) |
| Doctoral advisor | Edwin B. Wilson |
Jane Worcester (died 8 October 1989)[1] was a biostatistician and epidemiologist who became the second tenured female professor, after Martha May Eliot, and the first female chair of biostatistics in the Harvard School of Public Health.[2][3]
Biography
Worcester graduated from Smith College in 1931, with a bachelor's degree in mathematics, and was hired by Harvard biostatistician Edwin B. Wilson to become a human computer at Harvard.[2][4] She was hired because of her strong background in statistics.[1] They continued to work together on theoretical research in biostatistics until Wilson retired as chair of the department in 1945,[2] eventually publishing 27 papers together.[1] Worcester completed a Ph.D. in epidemiology at Harvard under Wilson's supervision in 1947; her dissertation was The Epidemiology of Streptococcal and Non-Streptococcal Respiratory Disease.[5]
She joined the Harvard faculty, was granted tenure in 1962,[3] and succeeded Robert Reed as chair of the Department of Biostatistics in 1974[1] until 1977, when she retired.[1][2][6]
She moved to Falmouth on Cape Cod and died there on October 8, 1989 at 88 years of age.
Selected works
- Jick, Hershel, Barbro Westerholm, Martin P Vessey, George P Lewis, Dennis Slone, William H W. Inman, Samuel Shapiro, and Jane Worcester. "Venous thromboembolic disease and ABO blood type: a cooperative study." The Lancet 293, no. 7594 (1969): 539-542.
- MacMahon, Brian, and Jane Worcester. "Age at Menopause, United States, 1960-1962." (1966).
- McArthur, JanetW., Francis M. Ingersoll, and Jane Worcester. "The urinary excretion of interstitial-cell and follicle-stimulating hormone activity by women with diseases of the reproductive system." The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism 18, no. 11 (1958): 1202-1215.
- Wilson, Edwin B., and Jane Worcester. "The law of mass action in epidemiology." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 31, no. 1 (1945): 24-34.
- Wilson, Edwin B., and Jane Worcester. "The law of mass action in epidemiology: II." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 31, no. 4 (1945): 109-116.
Awards and honors
She became a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1960.[7] In 1968, Smith College awarded her an honorary doctorate.[4]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Wehrwein, Peter (12 July 2013), "Jane Worcester", Harvard Public Health Review, 75th Anniversary Issue, Vol. I, 1954-1971: pp. 89–90, https://issuu.com/harvardpublichealth/docs/75th_anniversary_v1_1954-1971_expan
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Laird, Nan; Zelen, Marvin (2012), "Harvard University Department of Biostatistics", in Agresti, Alan; Meng, Xiao-Li, Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U. S., Springer, pp. 77–90, doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-3649-2_7, ISBN 9781461436492. See especially pp. 84–85.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 The First Tenured Women Professors at Harvard University, Harvard University, https://faculty.harvard.edu/files/fdd/files/first_tenured_women_faculty_at_harvard_ar_final_10-24-11.pdf, retrieved 2017-11-07
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Honorary Degrees, Smith College, https://www.smith.edu/about-smith/smith-history/honorary-degrees, retrieved 2017-11-07
- ↑ Dissertations 1947–2018, Harvard Department of Biostatistics
- ↑ The Department of Biostatistics: A Timeline, Harvard School of Public Health, 2015-03-03, https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/biostatistics/history/, retrieved 2017-11-07
- ↑ ASA Fellows list, American Statistical Association, http://www.amstat.org/ASA/Your-Career/Awards/ASA-Fellows-list.aspx, retrieved 2017-11-07
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