Obituary: Ed Ross

Ed was born in New York City in 1944.  He grew up in the Bronx and studied mathematics at Harvard. 

In 1964, he came to the UK, where he worked in several computing posts at the University of London, before joining the Gallup Poll to design and write a computer system for analysing data. He went on to design and write several analysis programs, culminating in the Quantum platform which is still in widespread use.

In 1978, Ross founded his Quantime business, known for its statistical programming language Quantum and the world’s first interactive analysis program, Quanvert. Quancept, a CATI system followed, as did numerous other supporting packages.

In 1996, revenues were more than $16m, and the firm employed around 150 people in offices in London, New York, Cincinnati, Mexico City, San Francisco, and Amsterdam.

Following the sale of Quantime in 1997, Ross continued to take an active role in market research. He co-founded the OpenSurvey organisation, which focused on evolving commonly agreed standards for survey software. In 2000, he joined the Triple-S committee; he was also an active member of the Association for Survey Computing and a long-serving member of the MRBA.

Earlier this year, he became executive chairman of Digital Taxonomy – a start-up engaged in the application of technology, including Artificial Intelligence, for understanding and coding open-end text gathered in surveys. He became a fellow of the MRS in 2011.

Ed was a genuine polymath, skilled programmer, fierce intellect and endlessly generous and fun. And impossibly quirky.

In between his MR interests, he managed to fit in two MAs in Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, support for a huge range of charitable activities and had developed an encyclopaedic knowledge of unknown movies and eclectic music. Ed had an enormous circle of friends and admirers from all walks of life and from all over the world. They will miss him tremendously, as will the legion of restaurants and wine bars which he so loved and enjoyed.

We owe him a great debt of gratitude in helping to shape the role of technology in the research process and for the style and panache he brought to his dealing with Quantime’s many customers (note: legendary parties).

He is survived by his children Jonathan and Maya, and their mother, Susan.

The funeral will be in London at The West Chapel of Golders Green Crematorium on Tuesday 22nd August at 3.00pm. All are welcome. You can contact Jonathan on 07855 763 053 for more details. No gloomy suits or ties.