Robert E. Bohrer | Department of Statistics

Robert E. Bohrer 1939-1993
PhD 1965
Advisor: Wassily Hoeffding
University of North Carolina
Joined University of Illinois faculty 1968

One of the founding members of the Department of Statistics in 1985 Robert E. Bohrer published more than 50 research articles on such topics as applied collaborations and Annals of Statistics. Though he suffered from Diabetes and loss of sight in the early 1970's, Robert Bohrer continued to actively teach and lead research for another twenty years before passing in 1993. A friendly and sympathetic mentor for students and highly regarded colleague of his peers, Robert E. Bohrer's memory is honored each year by the Department of Statistics at the Robert Bohrer Memorial Student Workshop in Statistics.

Simultaneous inference, mathematical statistics, applied statistics and computational algorithms
Published more than 50 research articles ranging from applied collaborations to Annals of Statistics
Founded statistical consulting center in the statistics division of the Mathematics Department
Consulted with Bell Labs, Teepak, State Geological Survey through the early 80’s.
Part of founding of Department of Statistics in 1985
Suffered from Diabetes and lost his sight in the early 1970’s. Eventually required to use a wheel chair in the late 80’s.
Continued to teach and to be active in research for twenty years!
Friendly and sympathetic mentor for students

Example of range of publications.

On Bayes sequential design with two random variables. Biometrika, 1966.
On sharpening Scheffe bounds. J. Roy. Statist. Soc (Ser. B), 1967.
An optimality property of Scheffe bounds. Ann. Statist., 1973.
Multiple three-decision rules for parametric signs. J. Amer. Statist. Assoc., 1979.
(with M. J. Schervish) An optimal multiple decision rule for signs of parameters. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 1980.
(with G. G. Judge, T. A. Yancey and M. E. Bock) The nonoptimality of the inequality restricted estimator under squared error loss. J.Econometrics, 1984.
(with O.D. Sherwood, S.J. Downing, A. J. Rieber, S. W. Fraley and B. C. Richardsnon). Influence of litter size on ante-partum luteolysis and birth in the rat. Proceedings of the 5th Biennial Ovarian Workshop. July 1984.
(with M. R. Murphy) Tenable assumptions about comminution leading to lognormal and Rosin-Rammler (Weibull) in particle size distributions. Proc. Int. Symp: Control of Digestion and Metabolism in Ruminants, 1984.
[Algorithm AS 220] Operating characteristics of Jame-Stein and Efron-Morris estimators. J. Roy. Statist. Soc (Ser. C) (1986)
(with A. Martinsek) On combining Stein estimation problems: an adaptive rule under classical criteria. J. Statist. Plann. Inference, 1986
(with T. A. Yancey and G.G. Judge) Sampling performance of some joint one-sided preliminary test estimators under squared error loss.
Econometrica, 1989.

Bohrer Workshop Keynote Speakers

1994 Mark Schervish, Carnegie Mellon University
1995 Dan Naiman, Johns Hopkins University
1997 Ross Leadbetter, University of North Carolina
1998 Dennis Karney, University of Kansas
1999 Erich Lehmann, University of California Berkeley
2000 David Bartholomew, London School of Economics
2001 Gary Koch, University of North Carolina
2002 Robert Serfling, University of Texas Arlington
2003 Peter Bickel, University of California Berkeley
2004 Peter Imrey, Cleveland Clinic Foundation
2005 John Marden, University of Illinois
2006 Raymond Carroll, Texas A&M University
2007 Mary Ellen Bock, Purdue University
2008 Ker-Chau Li, UCLA
2010 Zhiliang Ying, Columbia University
2011 Minge Xie, Rutgers University
2012 Xuming He, University of Michigan
2013 Yuhong Yang, University of Minnesota
Sky Andrecheck, Cleveland Indians
2014 Hua-Hua Chang, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2015 Cun-Hui Zhang, Rutgers University
2016 Lawrence Brown, University of Pennsylvania
2017 Edward George, University of Pennsylvania
2018 Regina Liu, Rutgers University