Donald Allan Darling

Professor Donald A. Darling passed away on June 24, 2014. He was born in Los Angeles, California on May 4, 1915. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1939 from UCLA. During World War II, he headed the statistics department of the Air Force Weather Research Project, while also working toward his PhD at the California Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. from Caltech in 1947 under the direction of Morgan Ward.

After earning his PhD, he worked at Cornell University as a researcher for 1 year. The following year, he joined Rutgers University as an Assistant Professor. In 1949, he moved to the University of Michigan where he remained until 1967, when he joined the UCI Department of Mathematics. Donald was one of the earliest members of the UCI Math Department, and he served as a Professor until his retirement in 1982, including one year as interim chair.

In 1952, Anderson and Darling published what is now known as the Anderson-Darling test, a statistical test that determines whether a given data sample fits a given probability distribution. Darling had three PhD students while at Michigan, two of which became distinguished researchers.

Darling received several honors during his lifetime. In 1958-1959, he was a Guggenheim Fellow. He served as the Associate Editor of the Annals of Mathematical Statistics from 1958 to 1961. In 2002, a professorship of statistics was named in his honor at the University of Michigan.

Darling was fluent in French and was often seen on the tennis courts.

Bernard Russo
Professor Emeritus, Mathematics