| Morris Herman DeGroot | |
| Birth Date: | 8 June 1931 |
| Birth Place: | Scranton, Pennsylvania |
| Death Place: | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| Fields: | Statistics |
| Workplaces: | Carnegie Mellon University |
| Alma Mater: | Roosevelt University University of Chicago |
| Doctoral Advisors: | )--> |
| Doctoral Students: | Kathryn Chaloner |
| Awards: | ASA Fellow (1966)[1] IMS Fellow[2] AAAS Fellow[3] |
Morris Herman DeGroot (June 8, 1931 – November 2, 1989) was an American statistician.
Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, DeGroot graduated from Roosevelt University and earned master's and doctor's degrees from the University of Chicago. DeGroot joined Carnegie Mellon in 1957 and became a University Professor, the school's highest faculty position, serving in that position until his death from lung cancer in 1989.
He was the founding editor of the review journal Statistical Science.
He wrote six books, edited four volumes and authored over one hundred papers. Most of his research was on the theory of rational decision-making under uncertainty. His Optimal Statistical Decisions, published in 1970, is still recognized as one of the great books in the field. His courses on statistical decision theory taught at Carnegie-Mellon influenced Edward C. Prescott and Robert Lucas, Jr.,[4] influential figures in the development of new classical macroeconomics and real business-cycle theory. DeGroot's undergraduate text, Probability and Statistics, published in 1975, is widely recognized as a classic textbook.
DeGroot was elected fellow of the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the International Statistical Institute, the Econometric Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
ISBA's DeGroot Prize is named for him.[5]