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IF HE'S EXPLAINING BEAUTY, HE'S JUST DOING HIS JOB
By Amy Welch
Managing editor, Florida State Times
When Myles Hollander talks about mathematical theories in statistics, he uses words such as "elegant" and "beautiful."
You might think he was describing a flower or a person. But this year's Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor is talking about statistics and mathematical equations that can help predict anything from how long a machine might last to how long a person may live after a heart transplant.
Hollander has been a statistics professor at FSU since 1965. And though he specializes in developing mathematical statistical equations that can be applied to many serious situations, such as human life and machinery, he also enjoys developing fun equations that can predict how good a chance people have at winning the lottery or blackjack.
He has a way of taking the glaze out of the students' eyes when they hear the word "statistics." He not only convinces them, but shows them, how statistics can change and enhance the future.
Hollander went to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh on a metallurgy scholarship from a forging company. Persuaded by the head of the mathematics department, Hollander switched his major to mathematics. It would be Ed Olds, a professor of statistics,who would hook Hollander forever with two classes.
"In my senior year at Carnegie I got two very beautiful statistics courses - one very applied ... and one very theoretical - showing the beautiful theory that underlines the development of statistical methods," Hollander said.
As a graduate student at Stanford, Hollander learned about nonparametric statistical methods, which, he explains, "do not assume a specific mathematical formula (such as that of the bell-shaped curve) to describe the population from which the data are obtained.
"For instance, nonparametric statistics are better at predicting how long a person will live after a heart transplant because such time-to-an-end-point (such as death) data do not follow a bell-shaped curve."
Hollander is passionate about statistical methods, which can help scientists improve people's lives.
Hollander has developed several nonparametric statistical equations, or mathematical theories, so that researchers, doctors, and manufacturers can predict how long a machine will keep working, when the next bout of depression might hit a manic-depressive, or how long a person with Hodgkins' disease can hope to live. He currently has a grant from the National Institutes of Health to study those problems.
He explains them in class to lure his students to the world of statistics. And he uses more amusing subjects.
"Roulette and black jack, I talk about that a lot," Hollander said. "Not because I want to incite gambling. It's the other way around. I want to point out that they're suckers if they do gamble."
And his motto is, "Statistics means never having to say you're certain." The American Statistical Association took the saying and put it on a T-shirt, "and it's the best selling T-shirt at the statistical meetings, but I'm not getting any royalties."
His sense of humor is obvious to his students. Many of them still know him after they graduate.
"He's an excellent professor," said Edsel Peña, who was a Ph.D. student of Hollander's at FSU and is now a statistics professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. "He's very concerned with the welfare of his students. He encourages you and motivates you."
Now, Hollander and Peña work together on statistical theories. Hollander encouraged Peña to stay and work in the United States instead of returning to his home country, the Phillipines.
Hollander says he was astonished when he heard about Winning the Lawton honor.
"Sandy D'Alemberte called me ... I had no idea why he was calling," Hollander said. "I thought, 'Maybe he's checking to see if I'm working.'"
There's no doubt Hollander's working. In fact, he incorporates statistics
into almost everything he does or thinks about.