Peter Whittle (mathematician)

Peter Whittle
Born	(1927-02-27) 27 February 1927 (age 90) Wellington, New Zealand
Residence	Cambridge, England
Citizenship	New Zealand
Fields	Statistics Applied Mathematics Operations Research Control theory
Institutions	Uppsala University (1949–53) DSIR, New Zealand (1953–1959) University of Cambridge (1959–1961) University of Manchester (1961–67) University of Cambridge (1967–94)
Alma mater	University of New Zealand (MSc 1948) Uppsala University (PhD 1953)
Thesis	Hypothesis Testing in Time Series Analysis (1951)
Doctoral advisor	Herman Wold
Doctoral students	Alan John Branford Frank Kelly Sir John Kingman (initial studies) Stratis Kounias Mario Lefebvre David Eric Probert Roland Tegeder
Known for	Multivariate Wold theorem in time series analysis Reproducing kernel Hilbert space techniques Whittle likelihood Hypothesis testing in time series analysis Optimal control Queuing theory Network flows Kiefer-Wolfowitz theorem in Bayesian experimental design
Influences	Maurice Bartlett Bertil Matérn
Influenced	Karl Gustav Jöreskog
Notable awards	Fellow of the Royal Society (UK) (1978) Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand Guy Medal (Silver, 1966) (Gold, 1996) Sylvester Medal (1994) John von Neumann Theory Prize (1997) Frederick W. Lanchester Prize (1986)
Spouse	Käthe Blomquist (m. 1951]
Children	6

Peter Whittle (born 27 February 1927, in Wellington, New Zealand) is a mathematician and statistician, working in the fields of stochastic nets, optimal control, time series analysis, and . From 1967 to 1994, he was the Churchill Professor of Mathematics for Operational Research at the University of Cambridge.

Whittle graduated from the University of New Zealand in 1947 with a BSc in mathematics and physics and in 1948 with a MSc in mathematics.

He then moved to Uppsala, Sweden in 1950 to study for his PhD with Herman Wold (at Uppsala University). His thesis, Hypothesis Testing in Time Series, generalised Wold's autoregressive representation theorem for univariate stationary processes to multivariate processes. Whittle's thesis was published in 1951. A synopsis of Whittle's thesis also appeared as an appendix to the second edition of Wold's book on time-series analysis. He remained in Uppsala at the Statistics Institute as a docent until 1953, when Whittle returned to New Zealand.

In New Zealand, Whittle worked at the Department of Industrial and Scientific Research (DSIR) in the Applied Mathematics Laboratory (later named the Applied Mathematics Division).

In 1959 Whittle was appointed to a lectureship in Cambridge University. Whittle was appointed Professor of Mathematical statistics at the University of Manchester in 1961. After 6 years in Manchester, Whittle returned to Cambridge as the Churchill Professor of Mathematics for Operational Research, a post he held until his retirement in 1994. From 1973, he was also Director of the Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge.

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