William S.
Cleveland, an American computer scientist and professor of statistics and computer science at Purdue University, died on March 27, 2026, at age 83. Known for his work on data visualization, including nonparametric regression, local regression and the dot plot, he was also one of the developers of the S programming language.
Cleveland, born in Sussex, New Jersey, earned his AB in mathematics from Princeton University and his PhD in statistics from Yale University. He later worked at Bell Labs before joining Purdue.
William Swain Cleveland II (January 24, 1943 – March 27, 2026) was an American computer scientist, professor of statistics and professor of computer science at Purdue University, known for his work on data visualization, particularly on nonparametric regression and local regression. He was one of the developers of the S programming language.