Lawrence Shepp, the Patrick T. Harker Professor in the Statistics Department at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, died April 23, 2013, after a fall. He was 76.
Shepp received a bachelor’s degree from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn in 1958. In 1961, he earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton. A distinguished and internationally recognized mathematician, he was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Institute of Medicine, and the Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He joined the Wharton School in 2010, after being a professor at Rutgers (1997–2010), Columbia (1973–1997), and part time at Stanford (1978–1992). He worked at Bell Labs (1986–1996) on tomography, probability, and combinatorics; at Resonex (1983–1984) on MRI scanners; and at American Science and Engineering (1974–1975) on X-ray and CT scanners.
Shepp’s most recent involvement was in diabetes research, working to develop an algorithm to allow blood glucose meters to communicate with an insulin pump to automate the delivery of insulin to patients. Earlier, he had developed the Shepp-Logan algorithm, which became the worldwide standard for all CT machines and which he later expanded to MRI scans.
He is survived by his wife, Britt-Louise; three children; and seven grandchildren.
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