Greta M. Ljung

Greta Marianne Ljung, 82, passed away peacefully in her home in Lexington Massachusetts on August 12, 2024, more than two and a half years after first being diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. She was born to Ellen and Johannes Ljung in a small town called Jeppo in the western part of Finland. The country was at war with Russia at the time and one of her first memories was of Russian planes dropping bombs on a nearby town, while the family covered the windows with blankets to prevent their home from being seen at night. The war years brought much hardship but the Finns showed their "sisu" and the country prevailed.
Greta graduated from high school near the top of her class and later studied at Åbo Academy in Finland, where she received a BS/MS degree in Psychology. Following graduation, she was a Visiting Fellow at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, where she had an opportunity to work with statistician and econometrician Herman Wold. She later earned a Ph.D. degree in Statistics at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where her advisor was the world-renowned statistician George E. P. Box. Their joint work resulted in several publications, including a 1978 Biometrika paper on a goodness-of-fit test for time series modeling, now often referred to as the Ljung-Box test. In 2016, she also became co-author of the fifth edition of his by then classic book on Time Series Analysis; Forecasting and Control, originally published by Box and Jenkins in 1970. The importance of her published work is evidenced by more than 80,000 citations attributed to her by Google Scholar.
Greta's professional work included faculty positions at Boston University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was later Principal Scientist and chief statistician at AIR Worldwide in Boston, where she lead the development of probabilistic models to estimate potential economic losses from natural hazards such as hurricanes, tornadoes, hail storms, and wild fires.
Greta was a long-time member of the American Statistical Association and served as President of its Boston Chapter, covering five New England states. She served on several editorial boards and many committees. After retirement, she did volunteer work for several non-profit organizations including Finlandia Foundation – Boston. Her other interests included travel, arts and antiques, and a variety of outdoor activities such as gardening, swimming, and hiking. She was a passionate gardener and a strong advocate for the use of native plants to promote biodiversity and benefit wild life.
Greta is survived by her husband Bert Beander, whom she met in 1973 when they were graduate students at the University of Wisconsin. Long hours waiting for computer output in the University's Computing Center left plenty of time for conversation and led to a life-long friendship and love between them. She is also survived by a sister Lisa-Teir Siltanen of Korsholm, Finland and a brother Stig Ljung of Ekenäs, Finland, along with ten nieces and nephews residing in Finland and Sweden. Her husband also had family in Sweden and they made many trips to visit them over the years.
There will be a private burial at Westview Cemetery in Lexington. A celebration of her life will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to Dana Farber Cancer Institute or to Finlandia Foundation – Boston.