D. J. Finney

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David John Finney

FRSE (3 January 1917 – 12 November 2018), was a British statistician[1][2]
and
adverse reactions.[3] He turned 100 in January 2017[4][5] and died on 12 November 2018 at the age of 101 following a short illness.[6][7]

Childhood and education

Finney was born in Latchford, Cheshire, Warrington. In his interview with MacNeill, Finney describes his background: "My family were never wealthy but never in want". His paternal grandfather was a schoolmaster, and his father was an accountant in the steel industry. David was the eldest child; he had no sisters. In the Preface to his "Probit Analysis" book, Finney thanks his father Robt. G. S. Finney for assistance.

Finney was educated at the coeducational

statistical estimation for human genetics
.

Career

He became assistant to

Rothamsted Experimental Station
in 1939, where there was great emphasis on increasing productivity of agriculture and he was involved in the design of field experiments and the interpretation of their results. In 1945, he joined the
Fellow of the American Statistical Association.[8] He became a Fellow of The Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1955.[9]

After returning from India, he moved to the University of Aberdeen where he became Reader in Statistics and also established a Unit of Statistics funded by the Agricultural Research Council, which was to provide a service for Scotland modelled on that provided by Rothamsted for England. The Agricultural Research Council moved the Unit of Statistics to the University of Edinburgh in 1966 and Finney, who moved to Edinburgh with it, became the first Professor of Statistics at the university and well as being the Director of the Unit of Statistics. He served as president of the Royal Statistical Society in 1973–4. He retired from his position at Edinburgh in 1984.

During the 1960s he became involved in the field of drug safety, providing important advice both to the fledgling UK system of medicines safety and to efforts by

WHO to create an international system of pharmacovigilance. In 2002 he returned to contact with the Uppsala Monitoring Centre, which published an anthology of his writings about statistical methods and drug safety. He was also involved with Bill Inman in the setting-up of the Drug Safety Research Unit.[10] Finney received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1981.[11] In 1981, Finney became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.[12]

Works

References

  1. S2CID 19811694
    .
  2. ^ "David Finney, statistician who developed systems for monitoring the safety of prescribed drugs – obituary". The Telegraph. The Telegraph. 25 November 2018. Retrieved 26 November 2018.
  3. ^ The International Who's Who 1996–97, p. 499, at Google Books
  4. ^ "Honorary Life Member David Finney Turns 100". The International Biometric Society (Press release). Archived from the original on 16 January 2017.
  5. ^ David Finney celebrates 100th birthday by McDonnell, S. Significance April 2017
  6. ^ "David Finney 1917-2018". StatsLife. Royal Statistical Society. 15 November 2018. Archived from the original on 17 November 2018. Retrieved 16 November 2018.
  7. ^ "Remembering David Finney". www.biometricsociety.org. International Biometric Society. Retrieved 17 November 2018.
  8. ^ View/Search Fellows of the ASA Archived 16 June 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 23 July 2016.
  9. ^ "Professor David John Finney CBE FRS FRSE - The Royal Society of Edinburgh". The Royal Society of Edinburgh. Retrieved 19 December 2017.
  10. ^ Finney DJ. From thalidomide to pharmacovigilance: a personal account. Meyler's Side Effects of Drugs Annual 2003, in vol. 26.
  11. ^ "Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh: Honorary Graduates". www1.hw.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 18 April 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2016.
  12. ^ "About Us". World Cultural Council. Retrieved 8 November 2016.

External links

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