Matthew A. Carlton, Ph.D., is Professor of Statistics at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he joined the faculty in 1999. He received a B.A. in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles, with an emphasis on pure and applied probability; his thesis research involved applications ... Read moreof the Poisson-Dirichlet random process. Matt has published papers in the Journal of Applied Probability, Human Biology, Journal of Statistics Education, and The American Statistician. He was also the lead content adviser for the Statistically Speaking video series, designed for community college statistics courses, and he has published a variety of educational materials for high school statistics teachers. Matt was responsible for developing both the applied probability course and the probability and random processes course at Cal Poly, which in turn inspired him to get involved in writing this text. His professional research focus involves applications of probability to genetics and engineering. Personal interests include travel, good wine, and college sports. Jay Devore, Ph.D., received a B.S. in Engineering Science from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Ph.D. in Statistics from Stanford University. He previously taught at the University of Florida and Oberlin College and has had visiting positions at Stanford, Harvard, the University of Washington, New York University, and most recently for five successive years at Columbia University. He has been on the faculty at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, since 1977, where he was Chair of the Department of Statistics for seven years and recently achieved the exalted status of Professor Emeritus. Prior to getting involved in textbook writing, Jay published papers in the Journal of the American Statistical Association, the Journal of Applied Probability, Biometrika, Communications in Statistics, and the Annals of Statistics. He has previously authored or coauthored six other books, including Modern Mathematical Statistics with Applications(Springer) and Probability and Statistics for Engineering and the Sciences (Cengage); the latter book won a McGuffey Longevity Award from the Text and Academic Authors Association for demonstrated excellence over time. He is a Fellow of the American Statistical Association, has been an associate editor for both the Journal of the American Statistical Association and The American Statistician, and received the Distinguished Teaching Award from Cal Poly in 1991. His recreational interests include reading, playing tennis, traveling, and cooking and eating good food. Show Less