Colin L. Mallows, age 93, of Flemington, NJ, passed peacefully surrounded by his loving family on November 4, 2023.

He was born in Great Sampford, England, and spent his childhood there. During WWII, at the age of nine, he was evacuated to South Africa. He then returned to England at the age of fifteen. During his studies, he developed a passion for statistics. He went on to receive his bachelor’s degree in 1951 and his PhD at the age of 22 from University College London. Colin joined the teaching faculty, completed a sabbatical as a Fulbright Scholar at Princeton University, and spent most of his career at Bell Labs. He is known for Mallows’ Cp (a regression model diagnostic procedure) widely used in regression analysis, and the Fowlkes-Mallows index (a popular clustering validation criterion), as well as contributions to advances in number theory. He is an author of over 150 publications. He was awarded the R.A. Fisher Lectureship in 1997, the Deming Lectureship in 2004, and the Wilks Memorial Award in 2007. Colin is one of only two statisticians to have received all three of these honors.

Colin was an avid table tennis player, winning numerous awards, and running many tournaments. He was a long time member of the Summit Folk Dance group, and taught many classes on folk dancing. He and his wife kept a farm where he balanced his intellectual life with manual labor that included building two barns, maintaining equipment, and splitting wood.

He was the devoted husband of Jean Mallows for sixty-seven years; she was the love of his life. He was a loving father to three daughters; Susan, Elizabeth, and Diana. Each have very special memories of him, such as his teaching them how to build and fly a kite, turning handsprings across the lawn (and losing all the change in his pockets doing so) and regularly singing around the piano after dinner.

In addition to his parents, Colin was preceded in death by his brother, Dennis.

Surviving are his wife, Jean; his three daughters; eight grandchildren; fourteen great-grandchildren; and one great-great grandson.

Family and friends will gather on Tuesday, November 14, 2023, from 5:30-7:00 p.m. in the Chapel of Wright & Ford Family Funeral Home and Cremation Services, 38 State Highway 31, Flemington, NJ.

A Life Celebration service officiated by Rev. Ryan Nace will follow the gathering at the funeral home beginning at 7:00 p.m., and to which all are welcome.

If you are unable to attend, but would like something read on your behalf, please click HERE to send an email to the funeral home.

For those unable to attend in person, the services will be live-streamed beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Interment will be private.

You are encouraged to visit Colin’s permanent life celebration site at www.wrightfamily.com to light a candle of hope, leave messages of condolence, share words of comfort and recollection, and post photographs of his life.

Those who wish to honor Colin are asked to make a contribution in his memory to the Hunterdon Healthcare Foundation, via mail to 9100 Wescott Drive, Suite 202, Flemington, NJ 08822, or online by clicking HERE.

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Wright & Ford, your local, family owned & operated “Life Celebration Home”

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