A Conversation with James Hannan

TL;DR

This paper features an interview with James Hannan, highlighting his life, career, and pioneering research in repeated games, which was only fully appreciated later, emphasizing his contributions to game theory and decision strategies.

Contribution

It introduces James Hannan's innovative strategies for repeated play and forecaster selection, which were underrecognized during his early career.

Findings

Hannan's strategies apply to selecting the best forecaster.

His work in repeated games contributed to game theory.

Recognition of his contributions grew later in his career.

Abstract

Jim Hannan is a professor who has lived an interesting life and one whose fundamental research in repeated games was not fully appreciated until late in his career. During his service as a meteorologist in the Army in World War II, Jim played poker and made weather forecasts. It is curious that his later research included strategies for repeated play that apply to selecting the best forecaster. James Hannan was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts on September 14, 1922. He attended St. Jerome's High School and in January 1943 received the Ph.B. from St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont. Jim enlisted in the US Army Air Force to train and serve as a meteorologist. This took him to army airbases in China by the close of the war. Following discharge from the army, Jim studied mathematics at Harvard and graduated with the M.S. in June 1947. To prepare for doctoral work in statistics at the University of North Carolina that fall, Jim went to the University of Michigan in the summer of 1947. The routine admissions' physical revealed a spot on the lung and the possibility of tuberculosis. This caused Jim to stay at Ann Arbor through the fall of 1947 and then at a Veterans Administration Hospital in Framingham, Massachusetts to have his condition followed more closely. He was discharged from the hospital in the spring and started his study at Chapel Hill in the fall of 1948. There he began research in compound decision theory under Herbert Robbins. Feeling the need for teaching experience, Jim left Chapel Hill after two years and short of thesis to take a three year appointment as an instructor at Catholic University in Washington, DC. When told that renewal was not coming, Jim felt pressure to finish his degree.