Ivan Fellegi Explained

Ivan Fellegi
Office:Chief Statistician of Canada
Term Start:1985
Term End:2008
Predecessor:Martin Wilk
Successor:Munir Sheikh
Office2:Deputy Chief Statistician of Canada
Term Start2:1984
Term End2:1985
Birth Date:22 June 1935
Birth Place:Szeged, Hungary
Education:University of Budapest (B.Sc.)
Carleton University (M.Sc., Ph.D.)
Awards:Médaille de la Ville de Paris (échelon Vermeil, 1989)
Order of Canada (Member, 1992)
Gold Medal by the Statistical Society of Canada (1997)
Robert Schuman Medal by the European Community (1997)
Order of Canada (Officer, 1998)
Outstanding Achievement Award of the Public Service of Canada (2002)
Career Achievement Award of the Canadian Policy Research Initiative (2002)
Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages Leadership Award (2002)
Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic (2004)
Outstanding Career Award of the Public Service of Canada (2017)
Outstanding Service Award of Statistics Canada (2017)

Ivan Peter Fellegi, OC (Hungarian: Fellegi Péter Iván; born June 22, 1935) is a Hungarian-Canadian statistician and researcher who was the Chief Statistician of Canada from 1985 to 2008.

Former President of the International Statistical Institute, Honorary Member of the Statistical Society of Canada and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society among other associations, Dr. Fellegi has authored or co-authored extensive academic and research papers about various aspects of statistics, probability, mathematics, the social and economic implications of statistics, and the successful management of statistical organizations. An invaluable expert in his field and an exemplary public servant who has dedicated his career to serving the Canadian public, Fellegi has been honored with numerous awards and accolades, including six honorary doctorates, the Order of Canada, the Order of Merit of the Hungarian Republic, Career Achievement Award of the Canadian Policy Research Initiative, and the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Public Service of Canada. Since 2008, he has been the Chief Statistician Emeritus at Statistics Canada, where he continues to maintain an office today.

Early life

Born in Szeged, Hungary, Fellegi was working his way to complete mathematical studies at the Eötvös Loránd University when the Hungarian Uprising was crushed in 1956. When Fellegi was 21 years old, his mother arranged for a sympathetic physician to label her son a tuberculosis patient so that he could travel to the border area near Austria, ostensibly to receive treatment. Unfortunately, the pre-arranged smugglers were unavailable but several local teenagers, aided by a local woodcutter, agreed to lead him and his cousin to safety away from the Russian patrols. The pair trekked the mountains through cover of darkness until they made it to safety at the Austrian border. Shortly thereafter, Fellegi arrived in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to join his elder sister and soon began working for Statistics Canada (then known as the Dominion Bureau of Statistics).

In 1957, Fellegi completed his studies with night courses at Carleton University, in spite of being a new refugee without access to his Bachelor of Science transcripts. In 1958, he became the first Carleton University student to receive a Master of Science degree. Upon completing his doctoral studies in mathematical statistics in 1961, he became Carleton's first Ph.D. graduate. As there was no curriculum for his program at the time, his studies were largely self-guided.

While mathematical statistics became his lifeblood, Fellegi’s first love was literature and poetry. At the age of 14, he became the youngest member of the Hungarian Writers’ Association. He changed the trajectory of his studies when he was about to take entrance exams for university. Counter to his professors’ recommendations, he decided that mathematics was factual and far less open to interpretation than literature, so in 1953, he opted to take the mathematics entrance exam and placed in the top five scores nationally.

Career

In 1957, Fellegi was hired as a statistician at Statistics Canada, despite having not yet mastered English or French or being a Canadian citizen. In 1962, Fellegi was appointed Director of Sampling Research and Consultation Section, and in 1965, he was appointed Director of Sampling Research and Consultation Staff, before becoming Director General of the Methodology and Systems Branch in 1971. He was promoted to Assistant Chief Statistician in 1973 and became Deputy Chief Statistician in 1984.

While at Statistics Canada, two of Fellegi’s research papers, “A Theory for Record Linkage” (1969) and “A Systematic Approach to Automatic Edit and Imputation” (1973), earned the distinction of becoming 2 of the 19 landmark papers in survey sampling published between 1934 and 1990.

As an Assistant Chief Statistician, he took leave without pay in 1978 to work for the United States Commission on the Reorganization of the US Statistical System as established by President Jimmy Carter.

On September 1, 1985, with close to 30 years experience, Fellegi was appointed Chief Statistician of Canada. Statistics Canada is widely regarded as one of the best statistical agencies in the world and, under his leadership, received that recognition in 1991 and again in 1993 from The Economist magazine. Fellegi announced his retirement as Chief Statistician on February 15, 2008, after 23 years at the helm of the agency. He continues to serve Canada voluntarily as the Chief Statistician Emeritus.

Fellegi served as the Chairman of the Board of Governors of Carleton University from 1995 to 1997.

Internationally, he chaired the Conference of European Statisticians of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe from 1993 to 1997 and was the inaugural chairman of the Statistics Committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). As such, he played a key role in coordinating the (overlapping) mandates of the OECD Statistics Committee and the Conference of European Statisticians. At different periods of his career, he served as President of the International Statistical Institute, the International Association of Survey Statisticians, and the Statistical Society of Canada. He contributed to a number of international statistical projects, including work on the United States Census through the National Academy of Sciences.

Fellegi provided advice on statistical matters to his native Hungary following its transition to democracy, and in 2004 he was awarded the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary. He was also asked to review the statistical systems of Switzerland and Portugal.

Fellegi has been recognized in Canada and around the world for his extensive contributions to the field of statistics and public service. In 1965, he was elected as a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. In 1992, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada and was later promoted to Officer in 1998. He is an Honorary Member of the International Statistical Institute and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society, a Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

He has been awarded the Gold Medal of the Statistical Society of Canada (1997), the Robert Schuman Medal by the European Community (1997), La Médaille de la ville de Paris (1999), the Outstanding Achievement Award of the Public Service of Canada (2002), the Office of the Commission of Official Languages Leadership Award (2002), the Career Achievement Award of the Canadian Policy Research Initiative (2002), the Outstanding Career Award from the Public Service of Canada (2017), and the Outstanding Service Award of Statistics Canada (2017).

As Chief Statistician Emeritus of Canada, Fellegi continues to lend his expertise and provide invaluable advice and guidance to Statistics Canada staff. He attributes much of his success to the love and support of his family, including his wife of many years, Marika Fellegi, and their two daughters, both of whom have gone on to become successful medical professionals in their own right.

Titles and memberships

Honorary doctorates

Selected publications

References

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