Dr. David Harold Blackwell

Dr. David Harold Blackwell was born in Centralia, Illinois on April 24, 1919. He started his college career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at the age of 16. Over the next four years, he earned his Bachelor of Arts, Masters of Arts, and Ph.D. all in Mathematics by the age of 22. During his graduate studies, he was awarded competitive fellowships, one of which typically allowed former recipients an honorary faculty appointment at Princeton, which was objected due to his race. Even with the obstacles, he faced Dr. Blackwell went on to complete a lifetime’s worth of work by the time he was 40.

Blackwell taught at a number of Universities and finally settled at Howard University, where he later became the head of the department. Academically he wrote a textbook. published over 80 papers, and presented lectures across the world. He is well known for the Rao-Blackwell Theorem, Blackwell channel, Blackwell approachability theory, and a number of others. Due to his work, he was able to accept a teaching position in the statistic department at the University of California Berkeley, was elected president of the Institute of Mathematics, granted a full professorship, serve as Assistant Dean of the College of Arts and Science, chair of the Statistic Department, served abroad at UC Study Center for the United Kingdom and Ireland, and president of the International Association for Statics in the physical sciences.

Notably, he was the first African-American elected member of the National Academy of Science, making him one of the most famous and greatest African American Mathematicians. Additionally, he was the first tenured member of the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley. He won the von Neumann Theory Prize. There are awards in recognition of his work as a distinguished mathematical scientist who inspired a number of underrepresented youth in the professional mathematical sciences. Before he retired, he was appointed the W.W. Rouse Ball Lecturer at Cambridge University, England. Until then, he was a mathematician and the chair of the University of California Berkeley’s Department of Statistics until he retired. Dr. Blackwell passed on July 8, 2010, in Berkeley California at the age of 91, but his legacy as a Black STEAMer remains.