W. Allen Wallis

Wilson Allen Wallis (November 5, 1912 in Philadelphia – October 12, 1998 in Rochester, New York) was an American economist and statistician best known for serving as president of the University of Rochester. The Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance is named after him and William Kruskal.

He attended the University of Minnesota, Class of 1932, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity. After a year of graduate work at the University of Minnesota, he began studies at the University of Chicago in 1933.

In 1936–37, he served as an economist and statistician for the National Resources Committee. During World War II, Wallis was the director of research of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development's Statistical Research Group (1942–46); he recruited a team of bright young economists, including Milton Friedman, to the Statistical Research Group.

Wallis served as dean of the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business]] from 1956 to 1962. During his time as dean he established the "Chicago Approach to Business Education," which involved the application of statistical methodology to business.