Alfred J. Lotka

Alfred James Lotka (March 2, 1880 - December 5, 1949) was a US mathematician and statistician, most famous for his work in population dynamics.

Born in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (now L'viv, Ukraine) Lotka's parents were US nationals and he was educated internationally, including a degree at the University of Birmingham, England. In 1935, he married Romola Beattie. They had no children. His varied working life included:

• General Chemical Company
• US Patent Office
• National Bureau of Standards
• Editor of the Scientific American Supplement (1911-1914)
• Staff member at Johns Hopkins University (1922 - 1924)
• Statistician for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York (1924 until his retirement)

While at Johns Hopkins, Lotka completed his book Elements of Physical Biology (1924) in which he extended the work of Pierre François Verhulst and Vito Volterra. His name is most famously associated with the Volterra-Lotka equations of population dynamics.

Honors

• President of the Population Association of America (1938-1939)
• President of the American Statistical Association (1942)