The 82-year-old man who died last week after he was attacked at a bus stop in downtown Portland in June was a well-known statistician and professor at Oregon State University for 30 years, who also taught at OHSU and spent years studying the effects of radiation on the people of Hiroshima.
Donald A. Pierce, who lived in Southwest Portland, spent most of his adult life studying data after earning a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Oklahoma State University, where he went on to complete his Ph.D. in statistics in 1965. He worked at Oregon State from 1966 to 1996.
Pierce then moved to Japan to research the cancer risk from radiation from the dropping of atomic bombs during World War II, from 1996 to 2004, according to his resume.
Pierce also had a successful career outside of the classroom, and served as an editor for multiple academic journals, as well as a board member to several statistics associations.
In more recent years, Pierce taught biostatistics at OHSU. He published his final paper, one of about 100 academic articles he authored or helped author, in 2016 with colleague Ruggero Bellio, a professor in Udine, Italy. It looked at software that would make it easier to compute likelihoods.
Family members declined to talk, or couldn’t be reached.
Pierce and 88-year-old Edward Lichtenstein were attacked at a bus stop near Southwest Fifth Avenue and Hall Street around 8:30 p.m. June 25. Keffer White, 29, was arrested the same day. Prosecutors initially charged him with assault and two counts of attempted murder.
With Pierce’s death on July 7, White now faces a murder charge as well, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.
Lichtenstein has been treated and released from a hospital.
White’s next court appearance is Friday, according to court records.
Investigators have asked anyone with information about the incident to contact Detective Jennifer Hertzler at Jennifer.hertzler@portlandoregon.gov or 503-823-1040 and reference case number 22-169912.
– Austin De Dios; adedios@oregonian.com; @austindedios; (503) 319-9744
