Obituary of Cyrus Derman

Dr. Cyrus Derman, a loving father, a husband, a mathematician and a musician, died at the age of 85 on April 27, at Putnam Hospital Center, Carmel, NY. He is survived by his daughter Hessy Derman. Dr. Derman did groundbreaking research with many applications. He wrote papers and books on probability, statistics and operations research that inspired many students to enter the applied mathematics - operations research profession. Dr. Derman was a dedicated advisor to many Ph.D. students. Mr. Derman was born and raised in Philadelphia. He was the son of a grocery store owner who came to this country from Lithuania. As a young boy he was often invited to play the violin at a Philadelphia radio show for talented children. Although his initial dream was to become a concert violinist, in the end he chose to become a mathematician. Indeed, after he finished his undergraduate degree at the University of Penn in music and mathematics, he went on to Columbia University for his graduate work in mathematical statistics. At Columbia he was privileged to work with the most important US statisticians of that time. He first became famous in Mathematics when a well-known authority of the time William Feller, cited young Derman's unfinished dissertation work in his book next to the work of another giant of the time A.N. Kolmogoroff. After his Ph.D. Derman was hired as an instructor at the School of Engineering at Columbia, where he became the driving force in developing the Columbia IEOR department to be often ranked number one in the country. Dr Derman held visiting appointments and taught at Syracuse University, Stanford University, University of California Berkeley, University of California Davis, Imperial College, London and the Technion, Israel. Mr. Derman played violin all his life, and in the end he realized his music dream as he began to perform with a chamber group in the early 90s, after his retirement from Columbia. There will just be a burial service at 1PM on Monday at the Fair Ridge Cemetery 476 Quaker Rd NY, 10514.