Norman Matloff

Norman Saul Matloff (born December 16, 1948) is an American professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis.

Norman Matloff
Born	Norman Saul Matloff (1948-12-16) December 16, 1948 (age 76)
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles (PhD)
Known for	Author of data science and R books
Scientific career
Institutions	University of California, Davis
Thesis	Equilibrium Behavior in an Infinite Voting Model
Doctoral advisor	Thomas M. Liggett

Early life

Norman Saul Matloff was born on December 16, 1948.^{[citation needed]} Matloff received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1975 from the mathematics department at the University of California, Los Angeles under the supervision of Thomas M. Liggett.^[1][2] His dissertation was titled Equilibrium Behavior in an Infinite Voting Model.^[2]

Career

Matloff is the author of several books on computer science, statistics and programming, including

• The Art of R Programming
• The Art of Debugging with GDB, DDD and Eclipse
• Parallel Computing for Data Science: With Examples in R, C++ and Cuda
• Fast Lane to Python: A Quick, Sensible Route to the Joys of Python Coding
• Probability and Statistics for Data Science: Math + R + Data
• Statistical Regression and Classification: From Linear Models to Machine Learning
• Regression and Classification in R: A Careful, Thus Practical View

Matloff is also the author of many articles concerning machine learning, parallel computing and recommender systems. His just under 2000 citations amount to an h-index of 22.^[3]

Matloff also writes a blog. He views the increased use of H-1B visas^[4] in the high technology field as an unnecessary practice that harms the prospects of Americans in the field. His opinions have been published in US national media relating broader policy debates about immigration,^[5] education,^[6] discrimination,^[7] and business hiring practices.^[8]

Matloff previously served as the Editor in Chief of the R Journal.^[9] He is the author of several software packages for the programming language R and holds a conservative view of R's development, discouraging premature exposure of students to the newer Tidyverse dialect of R.^[10] His views are supported by other academic teachers of the R language including Holger K. von Juanne-Diedrich,^[11] Jasper McChesney^[12] and a few others. However, academic debate contains many arguments for the use of Tidyverse^[13] and the dialect has won over most certifications in R.

Awards

In 2002, together with two colleagues, he was awarded the annual Distinguished Public Service Awards at UC Davis.

"Matloff has testified before the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on immigration issues and has served as an expert witness in age-discrimination lawsuits. He has advised federal and state agencies, including the U.S. departments of Commerce and State and the White House, on employment issues. He has served on a number of panels and committees on computer-industry hiring practices sponsored by industry, academia, government and public interest groups."^[1]

Bibliography

• 1988: Probability Modeling and Computer Simulation: An Integrated Introduction With Applications to Engineering and Computer Science (Duxbury Series) (Wadsworth) ISBN 0-534-91854-9
• 1992: IBM Microcomputer Architecture and Assembly Language: A Look Under The Hood (Prentice Hall) ISBN 0-13-451998-1
• 2007: The Art of Debugging With Gdb/Ddd: For Professionals and Students (No Starch Press) ISBN 1-59327-002-X
• 2011: The Art of R Programming (No Starch Press) ISBN 1593273843