Jane F. Gentleman

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Jane F. Gentleman (born Jane Forer in 1940 in Washington, D.C.; died February 7, 2023) was an American-Canadian statistician. She was the second woman to lead the Statistical Society of Canada and the first winner of the Janet L. Norwood Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Statistical Sciences.

Early life and education
Jane was the daughter of attorney Joseph Forer and teacher Florence Roberts. She earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics (1962) and a master’s degree in statistics (1965) from the University of Chicago. She completed a PhD in statistics at the University of Waterloo in 1973 with a dissertation on mortality data for different groups.

Career
Jane began as a statistical programmer at the University of Chicago in 1962. She worked at Bell Laboratories (1965–1968) and Imperial College London (1968–1969). From 1969 to 1984 she taught statistics at the University of Waterloo. In 1982 she joined Statistics Canada, eventually becoming chief of Health Status and Vital Statistics and editor of Health Reports (starting in 1996). In 1999 she moved to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she directed Health Interview Statistics until her retirement in 2014. She also held cross-appointments and visiting positions, including a summer 1981 stint at Stanford.

Leadership and editorial roles
Jane served as president of the Caucus for Women in Statistics (1983–1985) and as vice president of the American Statistical Association (1988–1990 and 2002–2004). She was a council member of the International Statistical Institute (1993–1995) and president of the Statistical Society of Canada (1996–1998). She contributed to many journals as an editor or board member and worked on several editorial projects related to health statistics.

Personal life
Jane married twice. She first married Bernard Munk in 1959 and had one child. She later married W. Morven Gentleman in 1967 and had another child.

Awards and legacy
In 2002, Jane became the first recipient of the Janet L. Norwood Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Statistical Sciences. She also received the University of Waterloo Faculty of Math Alumni Achievement Medal. She published more than 180 articles and contributed to several books, influencing many in the field of statistics and health data analysis.

Death
Jane F. Gentleman died in February 2023 after a long battle with cancer.