Agnes Herzberg died in Kingston, Ontario on June 2, 2026, at the age of 87. She made important and wide-ranging contributions as a researcher, a promoter of statistics in science and public policy, and in professional service. In 1991–92 she served as the Statistical Society of Canada’s first female president.

Agnes Margaret Herzberg was born on December 12, 1938 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Her parents, Gerhard Herzberg and Luise Oettinger, emigrated to Canada from Germany in 1935 to escape Nazi persecution. Both were physicists with PhDs and Gerhard became a professor at University of Saskatchewan. He and Luise had two children; Agnes’ brother Paul (1936–2015; his obituary is here) became a professor at York University in Toronto. In 1948 the family moved to Ottawa when Gerhard was appointed to the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), where, in 1971, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in spectroscopy.

Following high school in Ottawa, Agnes did undergraduate studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, graduating with a major in mathematics and minors in economics and political science. This was followed by graduate work under Norman Sklov at University of Saskatchewan. She received her PhD in 1966, and several papers from her thesis on response surfaces and rotatable designs were published in The Annals of Mathematical Statistics. Experimental design remained a major area of research for her during her career.

In February 1966, Agnes, who had been awarded an NRC Overseas Fellowship, began postdoctoral studies under David Cox at Birkbeck, University of London. In September 1966, Cox moved to the Department of Mathematics at Imperial College London (ICL) as Professor of Statistics. Agnes accompanied him and then in March 1968, ICL offered her a lecturer position in the Department, where she remained until 1988. During that period statisticians from all over the world visited ICL, and Agnes forged collaborations with many of them, including David Andrews, Peter Bickel, Norman Draper and Valerii Fedorov. Beyond her experimental design work, a particularly notable achievement was her 1985 book with David Andrews, entitled Data: A Collection of Problems from Many Fields for the Student and Research Worker. The book provided data sets and background on their source in the days when such data were not widely available. The data sets have been widely cited and used for teaching and for research on statistical methodology.

In 1988 Agnes returned to Canada as a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Queen’s University, retiring in 2004. While at Queen’s she continued working in design but also found inspiration from mathematics colleagues. One of her notable publications was a 2007 paper with Ram Murty on the mathematics of Sudoku: “Sudoku squares and chromatic polynomials.”

Agnes was passionate about the importance of statistics to science, society and public policy. In 1992, Queen’s University acquired Herstmonceux Castle in southern England through a donation, and Agnes had the inspiration for a conference at the castle on Statistics, Science and Public Policy (SSPP). The first of what would become an annual series of three-day meetings at Herstmonceux was in April 1996. Over the years the meetings included statisticians, scientists of all types, historians, journalists, high-ranking public servants, diplomats, high court judges, and legislators (including the Speaker in Canada’s House of Commons). Agnes was the driving force behind each meeting, dealing with everything from fundraising, the program, the editing and publishing of the proceedings, to conference logistics.

As a lover of classical music, Agnes decided to have one evening at the meetings with an intimate concert for attendees. Among her wide circle of friends were musicians and music teachers, who brought her into contact with prominent artists. A frequent performer was Angela Hewitt, the famous Canadian pianist, who became a close friend. Other performers included the Canadian opera star Gerald Finley and the Medici String Quartet. Agnes also commissioned a chamber opera, ultimately named The Pencil Salesman, for the Westben Arts Festival in Campbellford, Ontario. It was created by Westben’s artistic director Brian Finley, a cousin of Gerald Finley, and had its world premiere on June 25, 2016, with an international cast.

Agnes had a strong commitment to professional service. In addition to roles in the SSC, she served on the Royal Statistical Society’s council. She was an associate editor for Biometrika, The Annals of Statistics, Journal of Statistical Planning and Inference and Canadian Journal of Statistics. From 1980 to 2006 Agnes was Editor of the International Statistical Institute’s Short Book Reviews; she was a tireless promoter of books on statistics and during this period around 2,500 books were reviewed. She and David Hand co-edited a collection of David Cox’s papers.

Agnes received numerous honours, including fellowships in the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 2008 she was made a Specially Elected Fellow of The Royal Society of Canada. She was awarded the International Statistical Institute’s Henri Willem Methorst Medal for service and in 1999 received the SSC’s Distinguished Service Award. In 2007 the SSC named her an Honorary Member. In 2014 she won the SSC’s Lise Manchester Award “for bringing together statisticians, scientists, politicians and public servants from Canada and around the world annually since 1996 to tackle problems at the intersection of statistics, science and public policy… creating a network of experts to discuss current and emerging issues of topical interest and improve public policy to deal with them”.

Agnes had a special gift for staying in touch with friends. She struck up friendships in myriad ways, and her circle went far beyond statisticians and academic colleagues, from children of statisticians to taxi and bus drivers, hairdressers and shopkeepers. She was close friends with musicians and was generous in supporting their artistic endeavours. Once she had a sense of someone’s interests, they could expect to receive occasional books from her. She loved donuts and was known to give them to favorite bus drivers.

Agnes Herzberg was a major contributor to the statistical sciences and to many other facets of scientific and cultural life in Canada and internationally. For this and for her friendship and loyalty to so many, she will be greatly missed.

—

Written by Jerry Lawless and Mary Thompson