James J. Filliben *69

Jim died in his sleep in Derwood, Md., Aug. 15, 2022.

Jim was born in Philadelphia Dec. 14, 1943. He earned a bachelor’s in mathematics from La Salle College in 1965 and a Ph.D. in statistics from Princeton in 1969. John Tukey was his dissertation adviser.

Jim had a 53-year career at the National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), as a senior mathematical statistician. In 2021, he was named dean of staff, a title given to NIST’s longest-tenured technical staff member.

Jim made contributions to scientific and statistical problem formulation, experiment design, exploratory data analysis, and statistical graphing. In 1978, he developed Dataplot, an innovative statistical software package still in use today. He worked on effective randomization techniques for draft lotteries, the effects of daylight saving time, and the collapse of the World Trade Center. For his many accomplishments, he was named a fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences and the American Statistical Association, and earned multiple gold, silver, and bronze medals from the Department of Commerce.

Jim is survived by his children, James Jr., Jeannine, Andrea, and Christine; five grandchildren; and Yolanda Ellis, the mother of his children.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.