Sr. Research Fellow and CMER’s Statistician
We Remember
Michael Rosanoff Plesset
March 15, 1936 – January 30, 2024
CMER Statistician 2008 – 2023
CMER scholars are indebted to Michael R. Plesset, CMER’s first statistician, and wish to memorialize him and his work.
In his final years, starting in 2008 and until late in 2023, Mike volunteered as Sr. Research Fellow here at CMER. In so many ways, our early work at CMER is indebted to Mike. In this position he did our statistical analysis, teaching us and explaining to us so gently and thoroughly that we learned to depend upon his rapid, accurate analyses that enabled our projects. He taught and guided a graduate nurse practitioner student on statistical design and analysis for her graduate research project, and was co-author on four papers published in various peer-reviewed journals as well as several presentations at international conferences.
Mike did his undergraduate and graduate work in mathematics. He once told us that when he was in graduate school, the computer revolution was just beginning, and the best way to learn computers was to work in one of the new start-up companies rather than in school. So, he chose that route. Mike had over 60 years experience in applied mathematics, statistics, and computer software and hardware. He knew and worked with pioneers of computer-generated imagery, some of whom, like Ed Catmull, went on to Lucasfilm and Pixar. He worked in technical and management positions at the Cal Tech Jet Propulsion Laboratory for 19 years, where he was Director of Computing and Information Systems. He later worked at The Aerospace Corporation, a non-profit corporation providing technology consultation to the U.S.Air Force, and three early stage companies in the personal computer industry. He developed a Monte Carlo technique for solving complex problems with multiple statistical variables. He testified as an expert witness on computer matters in two cases in U.S. Federal Court.
Aside from Mike’s career in the space program, early computer graphics, and home computers, on a personal level he witnessed so much: seeing the Wizard of Oz in its original release (Radio City Music Hall in NY), seeing Japanese being rounded up during WW 2, knowing people who were planning to flee town during the Cuban Missile Crisis, witnessing a very early computer dating service on a computer the size of a room, being present as the very first picture of Mars appeared from the Viking lander… and that only gets us up to about 48 years ago.
Until his death he lived in San Gabriel, California with his wife Shu Mei. He leaves two children, Ross and Alison, and his sister, Judy Plesset Levens. We at CMER will always remember Mike.
Andrea RosanoffPh.D. Creator and Director
