Mary_Gibbons_Natrella

Mary Gibbons Natrella

Mary Gibbons Natrella

American statistician

Mary Gibbons Natrella (September 23, 1922 – May 18, 1988)[1][2][3][4] was an American statistician and "an expert on the application of modern statistical techniques in physical science experimentation and engineering testing".[5] She worked at the National Bureau of Standards, where she wrote their Handbook 91, Experimental Statistics (1963).[6][7] It became one of their "all-time best selling publications"[8] and has been recognized as "a monumental work" with "deep and long-lasting impact on the application of statistics to the planning and analysis of scientific experiments".[9]

Education and career

Mary Blanche Gibbons was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania. After earlier studies at Keystone College, she completed a bachelor's degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1942. She worked as a mathematician for the U.S. Army Ordnance Department from 1942 to 1945, and as a statistician for the Navy beginning in 1945.[2] In 1946, she married Joseph Victor Natrella, a mathematician for the Air Force who later worked for NASA.[2][4] In 1950, she moved from the Navy to the National Bureau of Standards,[2] where she remained until retiring in 1986.[5]

Contributions

Before writing her book, Natrella helped produce defense standard MIL-STD-105 for acceptance sampling. At the National Bureau of Standards, she was responsible for teaching statistics to scientists,[5] and "had a special gift for elucidating difficult statistical concepts".[9]

Recognition and legacy

In 1981, Natrella was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association;[10] her brother-in-law, Vito Natrella,[4] was also a Fellow.[10] She was also a fellow of the American Society for Test Materials.[5] She was given the Department of Commerce Bronze Medal in 1982.[1] She died in 1988 and was buried in Ivy Hill Cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia.[11]

A scholarship in her and her husband's name is awarded annually by the American Statistical Association, funded by a gift from her husband when she died.[8]

References

  1. [1]
    "Mary Gibbons Natrella, Statistician at NBS", Obituaries, The Washington Post, May 20, 1988
  2. [2]
    Who's who of American women, Marquis Who's Who, 1976, p. 644, ISBN 9780837904092
  3. [3]
    Eisenhart, Churchill (1988), "Obituary: Mary Gibbons Natrella, 1922–1988", The IMS Bulletin, 17: 335
  4. [4]
    "Joseph Victor Natrella, Mathematician", Obituaries, The Washington Post, September 7, 2005
  5. [5]
    Croarkin, Carroll; Guthrie, Will (2003), "Origins of the NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods in the Work of Mary Natrella", NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods (PDF), NIST
  6. [6]
    Natrella, M G (1963). Experimental Statistics, NBS Handbook 91 (PDF). Library of Congress card number 63-60072: National Bureau of Standards.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  7. [7]
    Reviews of Experimental Statistics:
  8. [8]
    Mary G. and Joseph Natrella Scholarship, American Statistical Association Quality and Productivity Section, retrieved 2017-11-12
  9. [9]
    Lide, David R. (2002), "Experimental Statistics", A Century of Excellence in Measurements, Standards, and Technology, CRC Press, pp. 132–133, ISBN 9780849312472
  10. [10]
    ASA Fellows list, American Statistical Association, archived from the original on 2017-12-01, retrieved 2017-11-12
  11. [11]
    Kitt, William H. (2010-04-12). "Deceased Name, Birth Date, Death Date, Burial Location" (PDF). Ivy Hill Cemetery. p. 7. Retrieved 2018-11-11.
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