| Francis X. Schumacher | |
| Birth Date: | March 14, 1892 |
| Birth Place: | Dayton, Ohio |
| Death Place: | Durham, North Carolina |
| Citizenship: | United States |
| Field: | Forestry |
| Work Institution: | University of California, United States Forest Service, Duke University |
| Alma Mater: | University of Michigan |
| Known For: | Introduction of statistical sampling and experimental design to American forestry. Growth & yield modeling[1] |
F.X. Schumacher (March 14, 1892 – June 3, 1967) was a prominent forest biometrician. He served on the forestry faculty at The University of California before being called to work as chief of the section forest measurements, U.S. Forest Service.[2] His interest in statistics led him to an affiliation with R.A. Fisher, and Schumacher led early advances to adopt statistical methods in forest inventories and silvicultural research.[3] He joined the faculty of the Duke Graduate School of Forestry as one of its original seven faculty members.[4] He co-authored textbooks on forest mensuration and sampling with other notable forest biometricians Donald Bruce[5] and Roy A. Chapman.[6] He was the first to apply the equation form Y = ea+b/X, widely known as the Schumacher equation, to timber growth and yield modeling.[7]
In 1957 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association.[8] Schumacher was named a Fellow, Society of American Foresters in 1959[9] and was awarded an honorary doctorate from North Carolina State University the same year.[10]