New Methods Of Geostatistical Analysis And Graphical Presentation. Distributions Of Populations Over Territories

Biographie de Roberto Beki

Born in Rome in January 1909, Professor Roberto Bachi graduated from the University of Rome. He taught statistics and demography at several universities in Italy, and achieved the rank of full professor in 1937. He immigrated to Palestine soon after fascist Italy's "racial laws" went into effect in 1938 and worked first as a statistician for the Hadassah Medical Organization and then in the Mandatory Government's Department of Statistics. In 1940 he was invited to join the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and became a full professor there in 1947. When the State of Israel was founded in 1948, Professor Bachi was appointed to the post of Government Statistician. He established Central Bureau of Statistics, which he directed until 1971, and is credited with developing a modern and efficient service, remarkable for its reliability, independence, and professional integrity. During the early 1950s he headed the Hebrew University's Department of Statistics and Demography, and he played an essential role in creating the University's Faculty of Social Sciences, serving as its first dean from 1953 to 1956. Soon after he was appointed Pro-Rector of the Hebrew University. With the establishment of the University's Institute of Contemporary Jewry, he created the Division of Jewish Demography and Statistics, the leading research center in its field. In the course of a long and distinguished academic career, he was mentor and guide to generations of students, many of whom went on to prominence in academic and public life. Thus he became known as the "Father of Israeli Statistics." After retiring in 1977, Professor Bachi continued to develop new research methodologies in the two fields that were his passion throughout his life geostatistics and graphical representation of statistical data. Using his new methods to represent distribution of populations over territories, he worked with the U.S. Bureau of the Census, edited the monumental Statistical Atlas of Italy, and directed a major study of residential trends of Jews in major cities in the Western World. Until his last days he worked on the present volume, which describes these techniques and demonstrates their remarkable efficacy. A member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and an honorary member of the American Statistical Society, Professor Bachi was honored with many distinctions and awards over the years, including the most prestigious 1982 Israel Prize for lifetime achievement.