W. K. Hastings

W. K. Hastings
Born(1930-07-21)July 21, 1930
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
DiedMay 13, 2016(2016-05-13) (aged 85)
Alma materUniversity of Toronto
Known forMetropolis–Hastings algorithm
Scientific career
FieldsStatistics
InstitutionsUniversity of Canterbury
Bell Labs
University of Toronto
University of Victoria
ThesisInvariant Fiducial Distributions (1962)
Doctoral advisorsDonald A. S. Fraser
Geoffrey Watson
Doctoral studentsPeter Peskun

Wilfred Keith Hastings (July 21, 1930 – May 13, 2016) was a Canadian statistician. He was noted for his contribution to the Metropolis–Hastings algorithm (or, Hastings–Metropolis algorithm), the most commonly used Markov chain Monte Carlo method (MCMC).