Larry Brown (1940-2018)
Just learned a few minutes ago that my friend Larry Brown has passed away today, after fiercely fighting cancer till the end. My thoughts of shared loss and deep support first go to my friend Linda, his wife, and to their children. And to all their colleagues and friends at Wharton. I have know Larry for all of my career, from working on his papers during my PhD to being a temporary tenant in his Cornell University office in White Hall while he was mostly away in sabbatical during the academic year 1988-1989, and then periodically meeting with him in Cornell and then Wharton along the years. He and Linday were always unbelievably welcoming and I fondly remember many times at their place or in superb restaurants in Phillie and elsewhere. And of course remembering just as fondly the many chats we had along these years about decision theory, admissibility, James-Stein estimation, and all aspects of mathematical statistics he loved and managed at an ethereal level of abstraction. His book on exponential families remains to this day one of the central books in my library, to which I kept referring on a regular basis… For certain, I will miss the friend and the scholar along the coming years, but keep returning to this book and have shared memories coming back to me as I will browse through its yellowed pages and typewriter style. Farewell, Larry, and thanks for everything!
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