Samuel Kotz, Statistician, 79, Washington Post

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/05/AR2010040504417.html

Samuel Kotz Statistician

Samuel Kotz, 79, a statistics professor and editor of the Encyclopedia of
Statistical Sciences, died March 16 [2010] at his home in Silver Spring. He
had pulmonary fibrosis.

At the time of his death, Dr. Kotz was a research professor at George
Washington University, where he had worked since 1997. He previously taught
at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Kotz wrote or edited more than a dozen books, including the nearly
10,000-page encyclopedia. Another book, "Leading Personalities in
Statistical Sciences," presented Florence Nightingale as a notable
statistician for developing a system to track mortality rates during the
Crimean War.

Dr. Kotz was born in Harbin, China, to a Jewish family that left Russia
after the Russian Revolution. He studied electrical engineering at the
Harbin Institute of Technology and in 1949 moved to Israel. After serving in
the Israeli air force, he received a master's degree in mathematics from
Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He came to the United States in the late
1950s, received a doctorate in mathematics from Cornell University in 1960
and became a U.S. citizen in the early 1970s.

He was a member of Young Israel Shomrai Emunah synagogue in Silver Spring.

Survivors include his wife of 46 years, Raysal Greenwald Kotz of Silver
Spring; three children, H. David Kotz of Silver Spring, Pnina Levinson of
Chicago and Tamar Kotz of New York City; and nine grandchildren.

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Emily Langer