Statistics/Mathematics Departments In The World’s Top 50 Universities For History

The purpose of this article is to add perspective to my article from earlier this month titled “The History of History Departments” which included my brief review of the founding dates of the history departments for 2020’s top 50 universities for studying history. What I found was that only 24% of them had information readily available on the website for their history departments about when those departments were established. I could have picked any other department aside from statistics but I have an interest in statistics and so it was the first department aside from history that I looked into. If you comment your suggestions on another department for me to look into I might end up looking into it.

Aside from most of them including their establishment dates, I was surprised at just how many had pages for the history of their department beyond just the founding date. If an institution did not have a department of statistics, I substituted their department of mathematics in its place because statistics is dependent on mathematics.

The expanded list below is based on the original 50 from my two part study into the history of history departments. The concise results show which universities did not include information on their department’s website about when their department of statistics was established.

Concise Results

Out of the 50, 17 (34%) of them did not say when the department was established. This means that 33 (66%) of them did. Furthermore, this means that the number of statistics/mathematics departments that included the establishment date for their departments exceeded the number of history departments that included the establishment date for their departments by 275% because 24% of history departments included that information while 66% of statistics/mathematics department included that information.

Concise List

5: The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

9: Princeton University

16: The University of Edinburgh

17: Leiden University

26: The University of Melbourne

27: Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin

32: Freie Universitat Berlin

33: New York University (NYU)

34: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen (LMU Munich)

35: Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne

36: University of Amsterdam (UvA)

37: Durham University

41: University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

47: McGill University

48: The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

49: University of York

50: The University of Exeter

Expanded Results

1: Harvard University

Harvard University’s Department of Statistics was established in 1957.^[1]

2: University of Oxford

The University of Oxford’s Department of Statistic’s “About Us” page had a link to “A Brief History” of that department. It also mentioned that this history was written on the 25th anniversary of the department which took place in 2013. After briefly reviewing Gittins’ “Brief History”, and subtracting 25 from 2013, I think it’s safe to say that their statistics department was official established in 1988.^[2]

3: University of Cambridge

The University of Camridge’s Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics (DPMMS) was established in 1964.^[3]

4: Yale University

Yale University’s Department of Statistics and Data Science was estbalished in 1963.^[4]

5: The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)

It didn’t appear to me that LSE had an about page for their Department of Statistics and the establishment date was not included on their “Welcome” page.^[5]

6: Stanford University

Stanford University’s Department of Statistics was established in 1948.^[6]

6: University of California, Berkeley (UCB)

UCB’s Department of Statistics was established in 1938.^[7]

8: Columbia University

Columbia University’s Department of Statistics had a webpage for their department history which contained a link to “a comprehensive history of the department” and that link reported that the department was established in 1946.^[8]

9: Princeton University

Princeton University’s Center for Statistics and Machine Learning’s “About the Center” page did not say when that center was established.^[9]

10: University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

UCLA’s statistics department was established in either 1998 or 1999. They were approved in 1998 but they celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2019.^[10]

11: University of Chicago

The University of Chicago’s Department of Statistics was established in 1949.^[11]

12: The Australian National University (ANU)

I don’t think ANU has an official department of statistics but they do have a School of Mathematical Sciences that was established in 1989.^[12]

13: University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

University of Michigan-Ann Arbor’s Department of Statistics was established in 1969.^[13]

14: King’s College London

King’s College London established the Statistics Group in 2015.^[14]

15: University of Toronto (U of T)

U of T established their Department of Statistics in the late 1970s.^[15]

16: The University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Statistics’ “About Us” page did not say when that centre was established.^[16]

17: Leiden University

Leiden University’s Center for Statistical Sciences’ website pages did not say when that center was established.^[17]

17: University College London (UCL)

UCL’s Department of Statistical Science was established in 1911 as the Department of Applied Statistics.^[18]

19: Kyoto University

Kyoto University’s Department of Mathematics was established in 1953. I don’t think they have a statistics department.^[19]

20: The University of Tokyo

I’m not sure if the University of Tokyo has a Department of Statistics. They do have the Tokyo University of Science that was established in 1881 but their website doesn’t have about pages for their various departments.^[20]

21: Cornell University

Cornell University’s Department of Statistics and Data Science (SDS) was established in 2005 as the Department of Statistical Sciences (DSS).^[21]

22: National University of Singapore (NUS)

NUS’ Department of Statistics and Applied Probability (DSAP) was established in 1998.^[22]

23: Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University’s Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics traces its origins to 1946 but obtained its current name in 2004.^[23]

24: Peking University

Peking’s website appeared to be down so I’ll have to check back on this later.

25: University of British Columbia (UBC)

UBC’s Department of Statistics was established in 1984.^[25]

26: The University of Melbourne

The “About Us” page for the University of Melbourne’s School of Mathematics and Statistics did not say when that school was established.^[26]

27: Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin

I don’t think Humboldt University of Berlin has a statistics department. They do have a Department of Mathematics and their website for that didn’t say when it was established.^[27]

28: The University of Sydney

The University of Sydney’s School of Mathematics and Statistics was established in 1991.^[28]

29: University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Statistics was established in 1931.^[29]

30: University of Texas at Austin

The University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Statistics and Data Sciences (SDS) was established in 2014.^[30]

31: University of Wisconsin-Madison

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Department of Statistics was established in 1960.^[31]

32: Freie Universitat Berlin

I don’t know if Freie Universitat Berlin has a statistics department. They have an Institute of Mathematics but I don’t think it has an about page or online information about when it was founded.^[32]

33: New York University (NYU)

NYU’s Department of Technology, Operations, and Statistics’ About section did not say when it was established.^[33]

34: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen (LMU Munich)

LMU Munich’s Department of Statistics website did not say when the department was established.^[34]

35: Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne

I don’t think they have a statistics department but they do have a Department of Mathematics & Computer Science that has a webpage which didn’t say when the department was established.^[35]

36: University of Amsterdam (UvA)

I don’t think they have a statistics department but they do have a Department of Mathematics that has a website which didn’t say when the department was established.^[36]

37: Duke University

Duke University’s Department of Statistical Science was established in 1987.^[37]

37: Durham University

Durham University’s Department of Mathematical Science’s website did not say when the department was established.^[38]

39: The University of Warwick

The University of Warwick was established in 1972.^[39]

40: The University of Manchester (UMIST)

UMIST’s Department of Mathematics was established in 2004.^[40]

41: University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Department of Statistics and Operations Research’s website did not say when it was established.^[41]

42: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM)

UNAM’s Institute of Mathematics was established in 1942.^[42]

42: The University of Hong Kong (HKU)

HKU’s Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science was established in 1967.^[43]

44: University of St Andrews

University of St. Andrews’ School of Mathematics and Statistics was established in 1987.^[44]

45: Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg

Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg’s Institute for Applied Mathematics was established in 1957.^[45]

45: SOAS University of London

I don’t think SOAS University of London has a statistics or a mathematics department.^[46]

47: McGill University

McGill University’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics’ website did not say when it was established.^[47]

48: The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

CUHK’s Department of Mathematics’ website did not say when it was established.^[48]

49: University of York

The University of York’s Department of Mathematics’ website did not say when it was established.^[49]

50: The University of Exeter

The University of Exeter’s College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences’ website did not say when it was established.^[50]

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References:

[1] – https://statistics.fas.harvard.edu/about. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[2] – https://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/about-us/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[3] – https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/about. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[4] – https://statistics.yale.edu/about-us/history. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[5] – https://www.lse.ac.uk/Statistics/Welcome. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[6] – https://statistics.stanford.edu/about/history. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[7] – https://statistics.berkeley.edu/about. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[8] – http://stat.columbia.edu/department-history/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[9] – https://csml.princeton.edu/about. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[10] – http://statistics.ucla.edu/about/our-history/statistics-at-ucla/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[11] – https://stat.uchicago.edu/about/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[12] – https://maths.anu.edu.au/about/history. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[13] – https://lsa.umich.edu/stats/about/history.html. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[14] – https://www.kcl.ac.uk/research/statistics. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[15] – https://www.statistics.utoronto.ca/about-us/our-history. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[16] – https://centreforstatistics.maths.ed.ac.uk/cfs/about. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[17] – https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/leiden-university-institute-for-statistical-science. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[18] – https://www.math.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/overview/history. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[19] – https://www.math.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/overview/history. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[20] – https://www.tus.ac.jp/en/grad/ri/math.html. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[21] – https://stat.cornell.edu/about-us/history. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[22] – https://www.stat.nus.edu.sg/about-us/overview/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[23] – https://engineering.jhu.edu/ams/about/department-history/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[24] –

[25] – https://www.stat.ubc.ca/about-us. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[26] – https://ms.unimelb.edu.au/#about. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[27] – https://www.mathematik.hu-berlin.de/en/front-page-en. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[28] – https://www.maths.usyd.edu.au/u/About/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[29] – https://statistics.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/History_Of_Department.pdf. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[30] – https://stat.utexas.edu/about. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[31] – https://stat.wisc.edu/department-history/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[32] – https://www.mi.fu-berlin.de/en/math/index.html. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[33] – https://www.stern.nyu.edu/experience-stern/about/departments-centers-initiatives/academic-departments/ioms-dept. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[34] – https://www.en.statistik.uni-muenchen.de/index.html#:~:text=The%20Department%20of%20Statistics%20at,social%20sciences%20and%20economic%20science.. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[35] – https://www.pantheonsorbonne.fr/ufr/ufr27/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[36] – https://www.math.vu.nl/en/index.aspx. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[37] – https://stat.duke.edu/about/history. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[38] – https://www.dur.ac.uk/mathematical.sciences/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[39] – https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/statistics/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[40] – https://www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/about/history-and-heritage/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[41] – https://stat-or.unc.edu/about/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[42] – https://www.matem.unam.mx/acerca-de/copy_of_historia. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[43] – https://saasweb.hku.hk/about.php. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[44] – https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/mathematics-statistics/about/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[45] – https://www.mathinf.uni-heidelberg.de/ueber.html. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[46] – https://www.soas.ac.uk/departments/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[47] – https://www.mcgill.ca/mathstat/about-us. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[48] – https://www.math.cuhk.edu.hk/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[49] – https://www.york.ac.uk/maths/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

[50] – http://emps.exeter.ac.uk/about/aboutus/. Accessed 27 Dec. 2020.

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