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Judith E. (Judy) Zeh is an American statistician. She retired from the University of Washington, where she spent her entire career, and is a research professor emerita of statistics at Washington. She is known for her research on bowhead whale populations.

Research

Zeh's research concerns population dynamics and population estimation. She has applied these methods more specifically, in association with the International Whaling Commission, to bowhead whale populations. In this application, she and her collaborator Adrian Raftery became pioneers in the use of Bayesian statistics for population estimation.

In 1999, she was elected for a three year term as chair of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission. She became the first woman in over 50 years in that position.

Education and career

Zeh was educated entirely at the University of Washington, where she also spent her entire academic career. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1962, and the next year began working as a computer programmer in Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory, where she remained until 1974.

While employed there, she earned a second bachelor's degree in 1965 in mathematics and numerical analysis, and a master's degree in 1969 in mathematical statistics. From 1975 to 1979, she was a doctoral student in biomathematics; after completing her Ph.D. in 1979, she became a lecturer in electrical engineering, while also working off-campus as a senior statistical analyst at Mathematical Sciences Northwest.

She worked as a postdoctoral researcher, research associate, and lecturer in statistics from 1982 to 1991, when she became a research associate professor in the statistics department, with a joint appointment in the Department of Quantitative Ecology and Resource Management. From 1999 to 2004 she also held an adjunct position on Laboratory Medicine at the University of Washington.

Recognition

In 1998, Zeh was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.

References

1. ^ Curriculum vitae (PDF), retrieved 2017-11-29
2. Judy Zeh, University of Washington Department of Statistics, retrieved 2017-11-29
3. ^ "Bowhead Whale on the Rebound", The New York Times, June 25, 1991, retrieved 2017-11-29
4. ^ Coleman, Matt (July 3, 2000), "International debate over world whale management", The World Today, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, retrieved 2017-11-29
5. ^ "Zeh Elected to Leadership Role in Whale Research", A&S Perspectives, University of Washington, Autumn 1999, archived from the original on November 21, 2011, retrieved 2017-11-29
6. ^ McGrayne, Sharon Bertsch (2011), The Theory that Would Not Die: How Bayes' Rule Cracked the Enigma Code, Hunted Down Russian Submarines, & Emerged Triumphant from Two Centuries of Controversy, Yale University Press, pp. 230–231, ISBN 9780300175097
7. Raftery, Adrian, Research on Whale Population Estimation and Population Dynamics, retrieved 2017-11-29
8. Agresti, Alan; Meng, Xiao-Li, eds. (2012), Strength in Numbers: The Rising of Academic Statistics Departments in the U. S., Springer, p. 524, ISBN 9781461436492, Judy Zeh, following in Doug Chapman's footsteps, served as chairman of the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission during 2000–2002.
9. ASA Fellows list, American Statistical Association, archived from the original on 2019-11-21, retrieved 2017-11-29

• Living people
• American statisticians
• American women statisticians
• University of Washington College of Arts and Sciences alumni
• University of Washington faculty
• Fellows of the American Statistical Association