Burton Herbert Singer, Ph.D., an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Emerging Pathogens Institute and Department of Mathematics, passed away on Feb. 15, 2026. Singer, an expert in statistics and tropical diseases, made significant scientific contributions that led to substantial health system reforms and epidemic interventions.
Burt Singer began his journey with the EPI in 2009 as a courtesy professor, transitioning to an adjunct professor role in 2010 within the EPI and the UF College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He was one of the EPI’s most prolific members, with over 1,300 publications spanning seven decades, including peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers, the last as recent as December 2025. He published in top-tier journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, The Lancet Infectious Diseases and Clinical Infectious Diseases.
Born on June 12, 1938, in Chicago to parents Ida and Isadore Singer, he attended Lane Tech College Preparatory School and studied piano and violin at the Interlochen Center for the Arts Summer Camp. He received a Bachelor of Science in Engineering Science in 1959 and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering in 1961 from the Case Institute of Technology. He completed his doctorate in statistics at Stanford University in 1967. After completing his Ph.D., Singer moved to New York to begin his academic career as a professor of statistics at Columbia University, where he taught for 17 years. At Columbia, he served as the Department of Statistics Chair. At this time, Singer also served as Chair of the National Research Council Committee on National Statistics and as Chair of the Steering Committee for Social and Economic Research in the World Health Organization Tropical Disease Research program.
In 1984, Singer accepted a position as a professor of economics and statistics at Yale University, where he later served as Dean of the Yale School of Public Health and Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. From 1993 to 2009, he served as the Charles & Marie Robertson Professor of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He also had affiliated faculty appointments in programs in Applied and Computational Mathematics, Environmental Studies, African Studies and the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Singer received many prestigious awards and honors throughout his career. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1994, the National Academy of Medicine in 2005 and served as a Guggenheim Fellow from 1981 to 1982. From 2010 to 2020, Singer was a member of the Research Board of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative, focusing on both short- and long-term consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. His most recent research centered around three principal areas: (i) identification of social, biological and environmental risks associated with infectious diseases, notably SARS-CoV-2, malaria and polio; (ii) integration of biology and biography of individual patients with multiple chronic conditions to improve the evidential basis for patient management; and (iii) epidemiology and biology of Huanglongbing, or citrus greening, to facilitate introduction of new and improved control strategies. Research in area (i) was conducted as a collaborative effort with the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Yale University. The clinical medicine focus of (ii) was part of a collaborative network directed by Ralph Horwitz of Temple University. Work in area (iii) involved collaborations with the EPI, the UF Department of Mathematics and the Florida Department of Agriculture, Division of Plant Industry.
Burton H. Singer retired on Feb. 15, 2026. Up until then, he continued to serve as a mentor to several students and interdisciplinary teams focused on optimizing public health policy. His collaborative research improved policy at both the national and global levels through analyses of health system reforms and epidemic interventions, which were cited by congressional leaders and multiple administrations. His scientific reach was extraordinary, spanning diseases from HIV to malaria to cancer, COVID and beyond, always guided by a commitment to the common good. The depth and breadth of his contributions were extraordinary.
Donations in his memory can be made to the Alzheimer’s Association to support his wife Eugenia’s battle with the disease.
Written by: Sydney Burge