A conversation with Joe Doob

Abstract

Joseph L. Doob was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, February 27, 1910. He received the degrees A.B. in 1930, A.M. in 1931 and Ph.D. in 1932 from Harvard University. From 1932 to 1934 Doob did postdoctoral work at Columbia University. In 1933-1934 he held a Carnegie Corporation Fellowship. Doob was a member of the faculty of the University of Illinois from 1935 until his retirement in 1978. He was Commissar of the Champaign-Urbana Saturday Hike for about 25 years after World War II.

Doob is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Foreign Associate of the Academy of Sciences, France. He was President of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics in 1950 and of the American Mathematical Society in 1963 and 1964. He received the National Medal of Science in 1979. In 1984 Doob was awarded the Career Prize by the American Mathematical Society for "his fundamental work in establishing probability as a branch of mathematics and for his continuing profound influence on its development."