Posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2026
OBITUARY
In Memory of Herman Chernoff: July 1, 1923 – July 6, 2026
(First draft prepared by Joe Cappelleri, August 2, 2026)
Professor Herman Chernoff, age 103, of Boston, MA, passed away peacefully on July 6, 2026. Herman was born on July 1, 1923, in New York City, to Pauline (Markowitz) and Max Chernoff. Chernoff met his future wife, Judith, when they were both graduate students at Brown University in 1945, and married her in 1947. She died at the age of 98 on June 9, 2023. At the time of her death, they were believed to be the oldest couple living in Massachusetts.
Among the notable events, symposia, and tributes to honor Herman, the Chernoff Excellence in Statistics Award – established by the New England Statistical Society (NESS) – is one of them. This award, which is the most prestigious award offered by NESS, honors Herman’ outstanding and long-term contributions to the field of statistics (https://nestat.org/hcaward/). These contributions include work on large sample theory, experimental design, sequential analysis, methods of presenting statistical data in visual form, and statistical decision making.
The annual New England Statistics Symposium was established in 1987 at the suggestion of Herman, which ultimately led to the establishment of NESS as a professional society in 2017. Inspired in part by Herman’s vision and inspiration, NESS has become an engine to mobilize the abundant pedagogical and research resources in the New England area and beyond and to promote and sustain the growth and expansion of statistics as one of the fundamental pillars of data science.
Herman’s legacy within NESS will remain alive through his esteemed contributions and cherished memory – and through his past, current, and future awardees of his namesake award. The inaugural recipient of the Chernoff Award in 2019 was Prof. Shaw-Hwa Lo from Columbia University who called the award a major highlight of his career and delivered his Chernoff Lecture on “Interaction-based Variable Selection and Big Data Prediction” at the New England Statistics Symposium in Hartford, Connecticut. As chair of the Chernoff Awards Committee, Dr. Joseph Cappelleri highlighted the relevance of the award before Prof. Lo delivered his lecture. In doing so, Joe also established his geographic juxtaposition and connection with Herman who attended the ceremony in person: “Herman was born in the Bronx, and it took him 19 years to get to Brooklyn. In contrast, I was born in Brooklyn, and it took me 19 years to get to the Bronx!”
Since then, there have been a pantheon of distinguish Chernoff award recipients whose lecture topics evoke Herman’s enduring influence and invigorating impact to the mathematical sciences: Stuart Geman (2021) from Brown University, “On the Personalization of Medical Therapies Models for Drug Selection, Dosage & Administration,” with Herman in attendance and interacting virtually; Nitis Mukhopadhyay (2022) from the University of Connecticut, “A Slow Dance from Andrey Markov’s Inequality to Herman Chernoff’s Inequality and Bound: My Memories in a Rear-View Mirror”; Nan Laird (2023) from Harvard University, “The Power of a Good Book: Elementary Decision Theory by Chernoff and Moses”; Alan E. Gelfand (2025) from Duke University, “Spatial Data Fusion”; and Hongyu Zhao (2026) from Yale University, “Revealing the Genetic Architecture of Complex Traits Through Statistical Modeling.”
Herman graduated from Townsend Harris High School. He then attended City College of New York and earned a doctorate in applied mathematics at Brown University. He later taught Statistics at the University of Illinois (Urbana), Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard University. Herman’s generous presence was palpable throughout his life in the mentoring he gave to students, colleagues, family, and friends.
Chernoff became a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1974, and he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1980. In 1987, he was selected for the Wilks Memorial Award by the American Statistical Association and, in 2024, made an inaugural fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
Herman is survived by his daughters, Ellen Chernoff and Miriam Chernoff (late husband Stan Morse), and by six nieces, their children, and grandchildren, along with many cousins.
On behalf of all of NESS, we wish to express our heartfelt condolences to Miriam and Ellen, along with other living members of the Chernoff family, who took pride in the NESS award in honor of their father. May your loving and cherished memories of Herman provide you with solace during this difficult time.
With sincere sympathy,
Past-Presidents, President and President-Elect of the New England Statistical Society
[Xiao-Li Meng, Ming-Hui Chen, Joseph C. Cappelleri, Eric D. Kolaczyk, Rebecca A. Betensky, Shuangge (Steven) Ma, Kun Chen]
