Peter Gavin Hall, Australian researcher, Died at 64

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Peter Gavin Hall was born on November 20, 1951, and died on January 9, 2016.

Peter was an Australian researcher in probability theory and mathematical statistics.

The American Statistical Association, described him as one of the most influential and prolific theoretical statisticians in the history of the field.

Peter was an author in probability and statistics.

Mathscinet lists him with more than 500 publications as of January 2008.

Peter made contributions to nonparametric statistics, in particular for curve estimation and resampling: the bootstrap method, smoothing, density estimation, and bandwidth selection.

He worked on numerous applications across fields of economics, engineering, physical science and biological science.

Peter also made contributions to surface roughness measurement using fractals.

In probability theory, Peter made many contributions to limit theory, spatial processes and stochastic geometry.

His paper “Theoretical comparison of bootstrap confidence intervals” (Annals of Statistics, 1988) has been reprinted in the Breakthroughs in Statistics collection.

Peter earned his Doctorate at the University of Oxford in 1976.

He was an ARC Laureate Fellow at the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Melbourne, and also had a joint appointment at the University of California Davis.

Peter previously held a professorship at the Centre for Mathematics and its Applications at the Australian National University.

He is an ISI Highly Cited Researcher.

Peter is one of only two researchers based outside of North American to win the COPSS Presidents’ Award, arguably the world’s most prestigious award for research statisticians.

Hall was born to radiophysics and radio astronomy pioneer Ruby Payne-Scott and telephone technician William Holman Hall.

His younger sister is artistic photographer and sculptor, Fiona Margaret Hall.

Peter was a keen photographer with a special interest in train photography.

He enjoyed travel and was a regular visitor to many universities around the world.

Peter Gavin Hall passed away due to leukemia in Melbourne on January 9, 2016.

He is survived by his wife, Jeannie.