Paul Shaman, an emeritus professor of statistics in the department of statistics and data science in the Wharton School, died on March 19. He was 85.

Born and raised in Portland, Oregon, Dr. Shaman graduated from Cleveland High School before moving east to attend Dartmouth College, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in 1961 and served as a sports broadcaster for football and basketball games. He earned master’s (1964) and doctorate (1966) degrees from Columbia University, then served as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and joined the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University before arriving at Wharton in 1977 as an assistant professor of statistics. He became an associate professor in 1981 and a full professor in 1985, and chaired the department of statistics and data science from 1990 to 2002.

While serving as department chair, Dr. Shaman expanded the size of the faculty and the number of course offerings of the department to capitalize on increasing scientific interest in statistics and technological advances in data science. Under his leadership, the department went from “very solid” to “world class,” according to statistics and data science professor emeritus Abba Krieger. “This was a critical time for our department on many levels,” Dr. Krieger said. “Paul never seemed to worry, even though there were some courses that we were slated to teach but had nobody to cover them. Miraculously, it all worked out in the end.” He served on Penn’s University Council and on various campus-wide ad hoc committees and, after retiring from Penn in 2009, as secretary of the Penn Association of Senior and Emeritus Faculty.

Outside of his faculty duties, Dr. Shaman consulted for the U.S. Postal Service, the State of New Jersey, and various law firms throughout the Delaware Valley region, and served as program director for statistics and probability at the National Science Foundation from 1984-1985. He was heavily involved with the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, serving as managing editor of the IMS’s flagship journal Annals of Statistics and creating and maintaining the IMS Scientific Legacy Database. In 2004, he received the IMS Carver Medal.

He is survived by his wife, Susan; his sons, David and Jeffrey; his daughters-in-law, Sabine and Sila; and his grandchildren, Benjamin, Minal, Ethan and Dalya.

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