Laurence Alan Baxter was professor

Professor

A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...

 of statistics

Statistics

Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....

 at the State University of New York at Stony Brook

State University of New York at Stony Brook

The State University of New York at Stony Brook, also known as Stony Brook University, is a public research university located in Stony Brook, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island, about east of Manhattan....

.

Early life

Baxter was born in Bearstead Jewish Maternity Hospital, Stoke Newington

Stoke Newington

Stoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...

; his family lived in Ilford

Ilford

Ilford is a large cosmopolitan town in East London, England and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Redbridge. It is located northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It forms a significant commercial and retail...

, Essex

Essex

Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...

. He was educated at University College London

University College London

University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...

.

Career

His first job (1975–7) was at an insurance company. He then went to the Central Electricity Generating Board, where he researched ways to predict the available generator capacity given the incidence of breakdowns and the time to repair generators. This work was accepted by UCL for a PhD in 1980.

Baxter was then offered a temporary post as a lecturer at the University of Delaware

University of Delaware

The university is organized into seven colleges:* College of Agriculture and Natural Resources* College of Arts and Sciences* Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics* College of Earth, Ocean and Environment* College of Education and Human Development...

. The next year, he moved to the State University of New York at Stony Brook

State University of New York at Stony Brook

The State University of New York at Stony Brook, also known as Stony Brook University, is a public research university located in Stony Brook, New York, on the North Shore of Long Island, about east of Manhattan....

 (SUNY); he was granted tenure

Tenure

Tenure commonly refers to life tenure in a job and specifically to a senior academic's contractual right not to have his or her position terminated without just cause.-19th century:...

 about ten years before his death.

Leitmann (1997) reports that "Baxter was internationally renowned for his work in applied probability
and reliability theory" and that he "published over 45 papers and did extensive consulting in this area". He further argues that the "results of his work on separately maintained components have been incorporated into a widely used AT&T Bell
Laboratories software package for calculating various characteristics of system availability". Leitmann also notes that Baxter provided extensions to several classic theories in reliability theory

Reliability theory

Reliability theory describes the probability of a system completing its expected function during an interval of time. It is the basis of reliability engineering, which is an area of study focused on optimizing the reliability, or probability of successful functioning, of systems, such as airplanes,...

 naming these continuum structure function

Continuum structure function

A continuum structure function is defined by Baxter as a nondecreasing mapping from the unit hypercube to the unit interval. It is used by Baxter to help in the modelling of the level of performance of a system in terms of the performance levels of its components.- References :*Kim, C., Baxter. L.A...

s (CSFs). Also that he researched air pollutions impact on mortality.

Baxter conceived the idea of and was Editor-in-chief of the book series Stochastic Modeling, published by Chapman and Hall

Chapman and Hall

Chapman & Hall was a British publishing house in London, founded in the first half of the 19th century by Edward Chapman and William Hall. Upon Hall's death in 1847, Chapman's cousin Frederic Chapman became partner in the company, of which he became sole manager upon the retirement of Edward...

from 1993. He was an editorial board member for Applied Probability Newsletter, Bulletin of the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and its Applications, Naval Research Logistics and the International Journal of Operations and Quantitative Management.

SUNY established the annual Laurence Baxter Memorial Lecture, which is now given each April at Stony Brook.