Cornfield, Jerome 1912-1979

Jerome Cornfield was born on October 12, 1912 in New York City. He received his B.S. (1933) from New York University in history and economics. He was a graduate student at Columbia University (1933-1934), where he studied statistics and economics, and then at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Graduate School (1936-1938), where he studied statistics and mathematics.

Cornfield's early professional work was with economic statistics, and he later entered the field of biostatistics. From 1934-1947 Cornfield worked as a statistician for the Department of Labor in the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1947 Cornfield served as a member of a three month mission from the Bureau of the Budget to General MacArthur in Tokyo to work out the reorganization of Japanese statistics.

In 1948 Cornfield began work at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the Biometrics Section, National Cancer Institute. He was promoted to more responsible positions until he left the National Cancer Institute in 1958 to work at the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University as both Professor and Head of the Department of Biostatistics in the School of Hygeine and Public Health. He returned to the National Institutes of Health in 1960 as Assistant Chief of the Biometrics Research Branch at the National Heart Institute. Cornfield was later promoted to Chief of the Biometrics Research Branch (1963-1967). From 1968-1972 Cornfield worked at the University of Pittsburgh as Research Professor of Biostatistics at the Graduate School of Public Health. In 1972 Cornfield began work at George Washington University as Professor of Statistics and Director of the Biostatistics Center of the Department of Statistics. He was Chairman of the Department of Statistics from 1973 to 1976. Throughout his career Cornfield was also a consultant to a variety of institutes and councils.

During his career Cornfield worked in many areas of study, including epidemiology, carcinogens, smoking, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other chronic diseases. He also worked with the Coronary Drug Project (CDP) and the University Group DIabetes Program (UGDP). In addition, he is known for his contributions to the nature of clinical trials, Bayesian inference, and the relationship between statistical theory and practice.