Ulf Grenander

GRENANDER, PROFESSOR ULF passed away peacefully, in his East Side home, on May 12th, 2016. Professor Grenander was born in 1923 in Västervik, Sweden. He earned his undergraduate degree at Uppsala University and his PhD in mathematics at Stockholm University. His early research focused on probability theory, stochastic processes, time series analysis, and statistical theory and in his later years he contributed greatly to the fields of computational statistics, image processing, pattern recognition, and artificial intelligence. Professor Grenander authored dozens of books and papers including the seminal work 'General Pattern Theory' and the recent book 'A Calculus of Ideas: A Mathematical Study of Human Thought.' During his more than four decades in the Applied Mathematics department at Brown University, he conducted groundbreaking research in the field he created and named Pattern Theory. In addition to teaching and doing research at Stockholm University and Brown University, he also spent time at the University of Chicago, the University of CaliforniaBerkeley, and the Institute of Technology in Stockholm. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and he received honorary doctorates from the University of Chicago and the Royal Institute of Technology of Stockholm. His numerous honors include serving as a member of the Swedish Nobel Prize Committee and being named an Arrhenius Fellow, a Fellow of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, a Guggenheim Fellow, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society of London. He was awarded the Prize of the Nordic Actuaries, the Arnberger prize of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, and in 1962 King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden presented him with Nordstjärneorden (the knighthood of the Polar Star). Brown University recognized his contributions by naming him the L. Herbert Ballou University Professor at Brown University, and he was most recently Professor Emeritus of Applied Mathematics at Brown University. Professor Grenander will be remembered by his family, colleagues, and former students as an incredibly humble and kind man. A voracious reader with an insatiable curiosity that spanned all fields, he loved to travel, especially to his summer home in rural Sweden where he sailed and enjoyed nature with Paj, his wife and best friend. He is survived by his loving wife of 69 years, Dr. Emma-Stina Grenander, his son Sven and daughter-in-law Nancy Grenander, his daughter Angela Grenander and Nooredin Raufi and their four children Alexander, Ariana, Nikolas and Tatiana, his daughter Charlotte and son-in-law Jeffery Guterman and their two children Annika and Anders, six remarkable CNAs who took wonderful care of him towards the end of his life, and his beloved Finnish spitz, Kettu. Services will be private, held in Sweden. Elegant mathematical proofs will be accepted in lieu of flowers.