James Durbin

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James Durbin FBA (30 June 1923 – 23 June 2012) was a British statistician and econometrician, known particularly for his work on time series analysis and serial correlation.

Education
The son of a greengrocer, Durbin was born in Widnes, where he attended the Wade Deacon Grammar School. He studied mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge where his contemporaries included David Cox and Denis Sargan.  After wartime service in the Army Operational Research Group, he worked as a statistician for two years with the British Boot, Shoe and Allied Trades Research Association and took a postgraduate diploma in mathematical statistics at Cambridge, supervised by Henry Daniels.

Career
After two years at the department of applied economics in Cambridge, Durbin joined the London School of Economics in 1950 and was appointed professor of statistics in 1961, a post he held until his retirement in 1988.

Awards and honours
He served as president of the International Statistical Institute in 1983–5 and of the Royal Statistical Society (RSS) in 1986–7. In 2008 he was awarded the highest distinction of the RSS, the Guy Medal in Gold (having previously been awarded both the Silver and Bronze medals). The citation read: 
His last book, Time Series Analysis by State Space Methods, was published by Oxford University Press in May 2012. His last books were co-authored by Siem Jan Koopman of  VU University Amsterdam.
He died on 23 June 2012.

References

Category:1923 births
Category:2012 deaths
Category:British statisticians
Category:Fellows of the American Statistical Association
Category:Presidents of the Royal Statistical Society
Category:Presidents of the International Statistical Institute
Category:Time series econometricians
Category:Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge
Category:Fellows of the British Academy
Category:Academics of the London School of Economics
Category:People from Wigan
Category:People from Widnes
Category:Fellows of the Econometric Society