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Professor Edward Pollak 1932 — 2012

We are saddened by the passing of Ed Pollak, Emeritus Professor of both the Statistics and Zoology and Genetics Departments. Dr. Pollak joined the ISU faculty in 1964 and retired as an emeritus professor in 2000. He earned a B.S in Botany from Cornell University in 1954, an M.S. in Experimental Statistics from North Carolina State College in 1956, and a PhD in Mathematical Statistics from Columbia University in 1964.  He was an instructor in the Department of Mathematics and Astronomy at Lehigh University from 1963 through 1964.  He was elected a Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 1974.

During his tenure at Iowa State University, Dr. Pollak supervised the work of five PhD students and 15 MS students.  Ed published extensively on statistical genetics and branching processes with important applications to  animal and plant breeding, and he will be remembered for interdisciplinary research and teaching at the intersections of quantitative and life sciences.   Dr. Pollak will be missed, as a colleague, as a friend, and as a member of the ISU community.