2018 Hall of Fame inductee David M. Allen grew up on a dairy farm near Sebree, Ky. He attended the University of Kentucky, where he earned a B.S. in 1961 and an M.S. in 1964, both in agriculture. While working on his thesis, he discovered the statistics field and decided to pursue it as a career. He received his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in experimental statistics from North Carolina State University.

In 1967, UK started a Department of Statistics within the College of Arts and Sciences and hired a distinguished statistician, Dr. R. L. Anderson, as the founding chair of the new department. Upon Allen’s graduation from N.C. State, he was the first faculty hired by Anderson.

Allen’s entire career has been in the Department of Statistics at UK. He served five years as department chair and two terms as director of graduate studies. His early research centered on variable selection methods. Later, his interest shifted to pharmacokinetic modeling. In this area, Allen and Dr. Peter Purdue received a grant from the National Science Foundation entitled “Stochastic Compartmental Systems.”

Allen served terms as associate editor of three professional journals: “Biometrics,” “Communications in Statistics,” and “Transactions on Mathematical Software.” He is co-author with Foster B. Cady of the book “Analyzing Experimental Data by Regression.” Allen is a fellow of the American Statistical Association.

Allen directed or co-directed the research of 24 doctoral students. He is proud of the professional success of many of his doctoral advisees. The David M. Allen Fellowship in Statistics and the new David M. Allen-Richard L. Anderson Professorship in Statistics were established by one of his former students, Dr. Bing Zhang ’91 and ’94, and his wife, Rachel.

Allen and his wife, Mary, live in Lexington and enjoy UK sports, musical programs at the Singletary Center, bridge and travel. Allen is active in the local Sierra Club and enjoys hiking, backpacking and pickleball. David and Mary have three daughters, Elaine, Diane, and Leigh, and four grandchildren, David, Cody, Camille, and Skyler.