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Sunday 13 March 2022

TOBY LEWIS,(1918-2020) STATISTICIAN

                               'THE MISFIT (DATA OUTLIER) CAN SOMETIMES BE 

                                               THE ONLY ONE WHO IS RIGHT' 


                      One of the greatest characters I have known in statistical academia. He

                   was as wise as anybody else, and was always good for a drink. I remember last 

                  drinking with him at an RSS conference at Keble College Oxford in April 1979. 

                   We'd met several times during the 1970s e.g. during a conference at Hull, and his 

                   seminar visit to Warwick. He was an enigmatic and very charming person.


                                                                      


                                                                 Toby Lewis, aged 100




                                            ROYAL STATISTICAL SOCIETY OBITUARY


                                             INTERVIEW BY JULIAN CHAMPKIN


                                  Quote:   The misfit can sometimes be the only one who is right


                                    The Statistician as a member of society, inaugural lecture, 

                                                    University of Hull, 1970


                          OUTLIERS IN STATISTICAL DATA  by BARNETT AND LEWIS


                   STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF SPHERICAL DATA, Fisher, Lewis,

                    and Embleton,


                                                                         



Toby retired from the Open University in 1986. He and Catherine moved to Diss in Norfolk to go ‘back to his roots’, and he was appointed to an Honorary Professorship at the University of East Anglia, a post which was extended until the summer of 2010. He continued to be active professionally, receiving an Honorary DSc from UEA in 2000 in recognition of his work as ‘an inspirational teacher and a leading light in the area of multi‐level modelling’.

Research interests and publications over these periods encompassed new fields for Toby, principally multi‐level statistical models, longitudinal studies and educational testing and assessment, often working with Harvey Goldstein and Ian Langford.


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