William S. “Bill” Cleveland

William S. Cleveland, the Shanti S. Gupta Distinguished Professor of Statistics and Courtesy Professor of Computer Science at Purdue University, passed away on March 27, 2026, at the age of 83. A pioneering statistician and visionary scholar, Bill transformed the way generations of researchers think about data, graphics, and scientific inquiry. His work helped establish data visualization as a rigorous intellectual discipline, and his broader vision of statistics as a field grounded in learning from data helped shape what we now call data science.

Born in Sussex, New Jersey, on January 24, 1943, Bill studied mathematics at Princeton University and earned his PhD in statistics from Yale University in 1969 under Leonard J. Savage. He began his career at Bell Laboratories, where he became a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff and served for 12 years as head of the Statistics Research Department. At Bell Labs, Bill worked alongside some of the most influential thinkers in modern statistics and computing, contributed to the development of the S programming language, and advanced a culture of hands-on data analysis that would leave a lasting mark on the field. He joined Purdue in 2004 and was later named Shanti S. Gupta Distinguished Professor of Statistics.

Bill’s research contributions were foundational. He was internationally known for his work in local regression, nonparametric smoothing, graphical perception, and statistical computing. His books The Elements of Graphing Data and Visualizing Data became classics, teaching scientists not merely how to draw graphs, but how to think clearly and honestly with data. His scholarship combined mathematical care, computational innovation, and extraordinary practical insight. Bill was also extraordinary for the breadth of his vision. In a 2001 publication, he gave one of the earliest and most influential articulations of “data science” as an expansion of statistics, integrating computing, subject-matter knowledge, and analytic thinking. What many now regard as a new field, Bill recognized and framed with exceptional clarity decades ago. His ideas anticipated the transformation of statistics in the twenty-first century and continue to shape how universities, industries, and scientists approach data-driven inquiry.

At Purdue, Bill brought distinction, intellectual breadth, and generosity of spirit to the Department of Statistics and the wider University. He was a scholar of uncommon originality, but also a valued colleague and mentor whose insight and encouragement influenced many faculty, students, and collaborators. His work connected statistics with computer science, machine learning, visual perception, environmental science, and other domains, reflecting his conviction that the most important statistical ideas emerge through engagement with real scientific problems.

Bill received many honors in recognition of his profound impact on the discipline, including election as a Fellow of the IMS [elected in 1999, “For path-breaking work in data visualization and smoothing that has affected how people think about and approach their data”] and of the American Statistical Association (ASA). He received the ASA Lifetime Achievement Award in Graphics and Computing, the Parzen Prize for Statistical Innovation, and an honorary doctorate from Hasselt University; he was an IMS Medallion Lecturer in 1983.

Yet those who knew him will remember not only the brilliance of his accomplishments, but also his clarity of thought, generosity, vision, and humanity. Purdue’s Department of Statistics has lost an extraordinary colleague, and the statistical sciences have lost one of their great modern architects. His legacy will endure in the methods he created, the field he helped define, and the many people whose thinking he changed for the better.

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Written by Xiao Wang,
Department Head, and J.O. Berger
& M.E. Bock Professor of Statistics,
Department of Statistics,
Purdue University