Glenn Shafer Explained

Glenn Shafer (born November 21, 1946) is an American mathematician and statistician. He is the co-creator of Dempster–Shafer theory. He is a University Professor and Board of Governors Professor at Rutgers University.

Early life and education

Shafer grew up on a farm near Caney, Kansas. He received a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Princeton University, then entered the Peace Corps, serving in Afghanistan. He returned to Princeton, earning a PhD in mathematical statistics in 1973 under Geoffrey Watson.[1] [2]

Career

He taught at Princeton and the University of Kansas, joining the faculty of Rutgers Business School – Newark and New Brunswick in 1992. From 2011 to 2014 he served as dean of the school.

During the 1970s and 1980s he expanded a theory first introduced by Arthur P. Dempster to create Dempster–Shafer theory, also described as the theory of belief functions or evidence theory. It is a general framework for reasoning with uncertainty, allowing one to combine evidence from different sources and arrive at a degree of belief (represented by a mathematical object called belief function) that takes into account all the available evidence.[3] The theory and its extensions have been of particular interest to the artificial intelligence community.[4]

More recently he worked with Vladimir Vovk to develop a game-theoretic framework for probability. That work produced a 2001 book, Probability and Finance: It's Only a Game! A joint research group between Rutgers and Royal Holloway, University of London has produced more than 50 working papers on the subject.[5]

Principal publications

Recognition

He is designated as a Board of Governors Professor at Rutgers. The University of Prague recognized him with an honorary doctorate. He has been a Fulbright Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow.[1] He was elected a Fellow of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence in 1992.[9]

Personal life

He is married to retired Princeton professor and artist Nell Irvin Painter.

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Glenn Shafer. Rutgers University. 12 June 2018. 12 June 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180612232742/http://www.business.rutgers.edu/faculty/glenn-shafer. live.
  2. Web site: Glenn Shafer . . 13 July 2022 . 22 May 2022 . https://web.archive.org/web/20220522013441/https://mathgenealogy.org/id.php?id=100562 . live .
  3. Fine, Terrence L.. Terrence L. Fine. Review: Glenn Shafer, A mathematical theory of evidence. Bull. Amer. Math. Soc.. 1977. 83. 4. 667–672. 10.1090/s0002-9904-1977-14338-3. free. 2018-06-12. 2018-06-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20180613014815/https://projecteuclid.org/euclid.bams/1183538896. live.
  4. Zadeh. L. A.. Lotfi Zadeh. 1984. Review of A Mathematical Theory of Evidence (PDF). AI Magazine. 5. 3. 2018-06-12. 2015-10-19. https://web.archive.org/web/20151019034833/http://www.aaai.org/ojs/index.php/aimagazine/article/download/452/388. live.
  5. Web site: The Game-Theoretic Probability and Finance Project. Probability and Finance. 12 June 2018. 24 June 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180624082942/http://www.probabilityandfinance.com/. live.
  6. Shafer, Glenn; A Mathematical Theory of Evidence, Princeton University Press, 1976,
  7. Book: Shafer. Glenn. Vovk. Vladimir. Probability and Finance: It's Only a Game!. 2001. Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics. 978-0471402268.
  8. Book: Shafer. Glenn. Vovk. Vladimir. Game‐Theoretic Foundations for Probability and Finance. 2019. Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics. 9780470903056.
  9. Web site: Elected AAAI Fellows . 2024-01-03 . AAAI . en-US . 2023-11-29 . https://web.archive.org/web/20231129223333/https://aaai.org/about-aaai/aaai-awards/the-aaai-fellows-program/elected-aaai-fellows/ . live .

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