Person

Elfving, Gustav

1908–1984

Erik Gustav Elfving was a Finnish mathematician and statistician who worked in the optimal design of experiments. He studied at the University of Helsinki and graduated in 1930 in mathematics, with astronomy and physics as minor subjects. From 1927 to 1929, he worked as a computational assistant at the astronomical observatory of the University of Helsinki. He studied probability theory under J. W. Lindeberg, who is now known for Lindeberg's condition for the central limit theorem. He wrote his dissertation in 1934 under the supervision of Rolf Nevanlinna; his thesis studied Riemann surfaces and their uniformization. In statistics, Elfving did research in the design of experiments, probability theory, and statistical inference, as well as applications. Elfving became the Professor of Mathematics at the Helsinki University of Technology. He was elected as a fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 1955 and an elected member of the International Statistical Institute in 1963.