William J. Youden

William J. Youden
Born(1900-04-12)12 April 1900
Died31 March 1971(1971-03-31) (aged 70)
Other namesJack Youden
EducationUniversity of Rochester
Columbia University
Scientific career
FieldsStatistics
InstitutionsBoyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research
National Bureau of Standards
Doctoral advisorHal T. Beans

William John Youden (April 12, 1900 – March 31, 1971), also known as Jack Youden, was an Australian-born American analytical chemist and statistician who formulated new statistical techniques in statistical analysis and in design of experiments. He developed the "Youden square", an incomplete block design developed from a 1937 paper, "Use of Incomplete Block Replications in Estimating Tobacco Mosaic Virus". He also helped to introduce the concept of restricted randomization, which he called constrained randomization. He devised Youden's J statistic as a simple measure summarising the performance of a binary diagnostic test.