About Gertrude Mary Cox
Gertrude Mary Cox (January 13, 1900 – October 17, 1978) was an American statistician and founder of the department of Experimental Statistics at North Carolina State University. She was later appointed director of both the Institute of Statistics of the Consolidated University of North Carolina and the Statistics Research Division of North Carolina State University. Her most important and influential research dealt with experimental design; In 1950 she published the book Experimental Designs, on the subject with W. G. Cochran, which became the major reference work on the design of experiments for statisticians for years afterwards. In 1949 Cox became the first woman elected into the International Statistical Institute and in 1956 was President of the American Statistical Association. == Early life and education == Gertrude Cox was born in Dayton, Iowa on January 13, 1900. She studied at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa, graduating in 1918. At this time she decided to become a deaconess in the Methodist Church and worked towards that end. However, in 1925, she decided to continue her education at Iowa State College (which was renamed Iowa State University in 1959) in Ames where she studied mathematics and statistics and was awarded a B.S. in 1929 and a Master's degree in statistics in 1931. From 1931 to 1933 Cox undertook graduate studies in psychological statistics at the University of California at Berkeley, then returned to Iowa State College to assist in establishing the new Statistical Laboratory. Here she worked on the design of experiments.
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