Salem Hanna Khamis | |
---|---|
Born |
Renineh village, Kaza of Nazareth, Ottoman Syria |
November 22, 1919
Died | June 16, 2005 Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom |
(aged 85)
Nationality | Palestinian, British |
Institution | American University of Beirut |
Field | International Statistician |
Alma mater | Arab College in Jerusalem, American University of Beirut, University College London |
Contributions | Geary–Khamis dollar, Sampling theory, tablulation of the Incomplete gamma function, wrote “Tables of the Incomplete Gamma Function Ratio”. |
Salem Hanna Khamis (Arabic: سالم حنا خميس) (November 22, 1919 – June 16, 2005) was a Palestinian economic statistician for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization who helped formalise the Geary-Khamis method of computing purchasing power parity of currencies.
Son of Hanna and Jamileh a Christian Palestinian family, Salem Khamis was born on November 22, 1919, in Reineh village, Palestine. He finished high school in 1938 with distinction at the Arab College in Jerusalem. He received a British Mandate scholarship for studying at the American University of Beirut (AUB), where he received in 1941 a BA degree in Mathematics (major) and Physics (minor), and in 1942 an MA in Physics.
From 1942-1943, Salem taught at the Akka High School in Acre and St Lucas High School in Haifa. In 1943 he was appointed a lecturer in the Mathematics Department at AUB. In 1945 he received a British Council scholarship for a PhD at University College London. He defended his thesis during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and Palestinian exodus (Nakba), and received the PhD title in 1950.